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In Memoriam

A P Kamath

When Awtar Singh gives away money for education, he feels he is paying the highest tribute to his wife, a Montessori teacher for 20 years.

A leading geotechnical forensic expert in Southern California, Awtar Singh firmly believes in donating to Saraswati mandirs to help Indian students study in America.

He has recently endowed a fellowship at University of Colorado in Boulder that gives $ 5,000 to a student of Indian origin towards his study and stay at the school. The scholarship will help the student cover about 20 per cent of his or her expenses in Colorado. The Awtar and Teji Singh Scholarship honors the memory of his late wife.

Two years ago, he gave $ 400,000 to the University of California at Berkeley, where he had taught for seven years, to establish a scholarship to enable one student a year to study at the school's engineering department. The student is selected from the Punjab Engineering College, Singh's alma mater. Arvinder Chopra, the first recipient of the scholarship, has graduated with a master's degree.

Singh is often asked if there is a guarantee that the scholarship winners will go back to India and serve the country.

"The world is shrinking so fast that it does not matter to me whether these fellowship students end up working in the United States or India," he says. "What matters is the best talent is rewarded and encouraged."

Singh and his wife migrated to America in 1962. Singh, who had worked as an executive engineer with the Bhakra Nagal dam project, earned his master's degree in civil engineering from University of Colorado. He subsequently earned his doctorate from Berkeley.

In 1972, he founded a geotechnical consulting firm, Lockwood Singh and Associates.

Though he is in business now, Singh says his passion for education has never gone away.

"We both have had a lifelong interest in education," he says, referring to his wife. "And we wanted to do something that reflected our interest. And I also wanted to give back something to the schools I attended."

For more information about the scholarships, call Geeta Brara at (310) 477-8208.

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