As the first recipient of the Ed Troxel Scholarship, I will always be grateful for the financial support that the endowment provided to help me achieve my personal and professional goals. After graduating from Kennewick High School, I used the scholarship to help finance my education at the University of California, San Diego, where I graduated with a B.S. in Bioengineering in 2007. Following my time at UC San Diego, I accepted a job with Abbott Laboratories and have been doing medical device research and development with Abbott for the past 4 years – with a specific emphasis on cardiovascular and diabetes care devices. I am also currently enrolled as a part-time graduate student in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City, (where, with any luck, I will be graduating with a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering in May 2012). So, as someone who is still paying off (and accruing) student loans, I can tell you that every dollar counts as we continue to see tuition rates reach record highs.