The Dee Howard Foundation STEM Education Excellence Award (SEEA) 2018
On October 10, 2017, The Dee Howard Foundation announced The Dee Howard Foundation STEM Education Excellence Award (SEEA) to recognize Pre-K thru 12 STEM teachers and administrators and to help incorporate aviation and aerospace subject matter in STEM programs primality focused on underserved students in the San Antonio Area.
The SEEA was presented at the San Antonio Aviation and Aerospace Hall of Fame Awards Dinner with the first annual SEEA Award to be presented at the 2018 Hall of Fame on 22 March 2018.
Further details concerning the school districts and schools eligible to submit nominations and the nomination procedures can be accessed through the links on this webpage.
The Hall of Fame is open to the public. Information is available by contacting Christina Martinez at (210) 758-3435 or
Letter to Superintendents
To Superintendents,
The Dee Howard Foundation is an organization dedicated to fostering aviation and aerospace in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S.T.E.M.) in Pre-K through 12 education programs primarily in schools in the greater San Antonio area whose students are from underserved areas of our community. All middle schools in Bexar County with high-needs students are eligible to submit nominations for the 2018 SEEA, in future years we will expand the eligibility to include Pre-K thru 5 and 9 thru 12.
In the spirit of supporting those on the “front lines” of S.T.E.M. education, we request your assistance in distributing this letter and the other information we will forward to you concerning the SEEA to the principal of each middle school in your district that meets the criteria to submit a nomination for the SEEA. The principal of each qualifying middle school may submit one nomination for the 2018 SEEA. The nominee must be an individual who teaches or directly administers the S.T.E.M. curriculum in the qualifying middle school and should exhibit the character traits consistent with a respected educator in the community.
Should a nominee from your school district be selected by The Dee Howard Foundation (DHF) as the 2018 awardee, the awardee, the awardee’s school, and your school district will receive the following benefits:
- the awardee will be announced before 22 March 2018, and the SEEA will be presented to the awardee at the San Antonio Aviation and Aerospace Hall of Fame 2018 Awards Dinner to be held on 22 March 2018 at the GDC Technics Hangar at Port San Antonio. For details about the 2018 Hall of Fame we invite you to visit http://www.deehoward.org/saahof-2018-dinner;
- the awardee’s name will appear in the 2018 Hall of Fame program brochure;
- a table of 10 will be reserved at the 2018 Hall of Fame, seated at that table will be the awardee, the principal from the awardee’s school, the superintendent of the school district of the awardee or their designated representative, and students from the awardee’s school; and The Dee Howard Foundation will award a grant of $1,000.00 for use by the awardee’s school to fund a program to be mutually agreed between The Dee Howard Foundation and the principal of the awardee’s school before 22 March 2018 to be used to begin to incorporate aviation and aerospace into the STEM curriculum of the school commencing in the 2018/2019 academic year.
To nominate an educator, the principal of the school should complete the attached nomination form, and compile a formal letter of recommendation on official school letterhead, then return the package to:
Christina Martinez, The Dee Howard Foundation, via
Nominations must be received by December 1, 2017 to be eligible for the award. If you have any questions concerning the event, the SEEA, or the nomination process, please email or call Wayne Fagan at (210) 570-7888.
We thank you and all of the members of the team in your school district for the great work you are doing to provide the young men and women in our community with the confidence and skills to be successful in an increasingly technological world. We look forward to receiving nominations from the principals of qualifying schools in your district and to providing well-deserved recognition to S.T.E.M. educators in the greater San Antonio area.
Sincerely,
Wayne I. Fagan
Chair The Dee Howard Foundation
SEEA Honoree
Randall Ohman, the SEEA Honoree for 2018, will be introduced at the San Antonio Aviation and Aerospace Hall of Fame 2018 Awards Dinner
Randall Ohman is a 6th-grade teacher at JSTEM Academy in Judson ISD. Mr.Ohman facilitates Judson ISD's JSTEM SmartLab where the entire grade level gets an introduction to engineering and many applied technologies. He hosts "Make Time," an afterschool program for invention, learning fabrication techniques, and tearing down things to fix or re-purpose. He coaches the school's robotics teams in strategies and robot design. He also mentors students entering STEM challenge competitions.
His students have been semifinalists and finalists in national contests sponsored by NASA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and DuPont. His students have been state and local champions in contests sponsored by Power Across Texas, DaVinci Minds, Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Governor's Office, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, UTSA, and the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. On multiple occasions, they have won scholarships intended for high school competitors.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office chose Mr. Ohman to represent the State of Texas at the 2017 National Summer Teaching Institute, a national initiative to broaden the implementation of invention programs and intellectual property terminology in the classroom. Mr. Ohman is a board member of Alamo Inventors and regularly presents on education news and issues. Recent presenters Drue Placette of DoLab and Debra Innocenti, partner at Innocenti Jones PLLC, proclaimed Mr. Ohman's programs and students at JSTEM a San Antonio invention resource. Mr. Ohman writes and speaks about giving the best STEM exposure and experiences to younger students and the importance of them making what they conceive of and design. He maintains a student engineering model shop within the bounds of his classroom.
Before receiving his Master of Teaching from the University of the Incarnate Word, Mr. Ohman was a design engineer. Highlights include high-speed interconnection and heat transfer developments in the supercomputer industry, where his patented method of air cooling high power density modules enabled these computers to be more mobile. He developed an industry-leading, patented, high-performance hospital bed surface that was portable and reduced patient-to-bed pressures to near zero. He followed with a patient rotation system that used his patented positional feedback sensing so that patients might not suffer the effects of pneumonia. And he developed an industry-certified check valve for water in beverage machines that set a new standard for reliability and high flow. Mr. Ohman received his undergraduate degree in physics from Carleton College.
