Fred A. Giese Endowed Scholarship in Engineering

Fred A. Giese was chief engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville from 1941 to 1972. Because of the pending war, supplies and machinery were difficult to find, and in his first year of service, Mr. Giese repaired so many broken or discarded implements that the Chancellor at the time remarked in a letter that “he had saved the school the equivalent of his entire year’s salary.” Fixing or finding new ways to recycle the broken was one of Mr. Giese’s favorite challenges, and because he himself had experienced the necessity of holding down two jobs while going to classes, he always tried to hire students who needed financial aid even before there was an organized program to do so. Mr. Giese’s family and friends created this scholarship in in memory of Fred Giese, in recognition of his struggles to support himself as an engineering student, in light of his hiring practices in the early years at Platteville and his ability for repairing and reusing.

The following criteria shall be used in the annual selection of the recipient(s):
1. Applicants must be sophomore or junior standing
2. Applicants must be majoring in Engineering
3. Applicants must be in the upper 20% of their Engineering class
4. Applicants must demonstrate financial need
5. Applicants must have practical pragmatism like Fred Giese
6. Preference will be given to non-traditional students