Daleen Berry, a Fairmont State College honors student, has been awarded the first annual Mid-Atlantic Aerospace Complex (MAAC) summer internship for the year 2000. In addition to the $5,000.00 stipend, Berry will also receive college credit for her work. the team's action plan in motion.

Ms. Berry, who is a Preston County native, is a full-time student at the Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Center in Bridgeport, where she is pursuing a bachelor's degree in aviation administration. This degree also carries a flight option with it and allows her to earn her private pilot's license as well as instrument, commercial and instructor's ratings.

In announcing Ms. Berry's award, MAAC President Richard T. Detrio said, "The selection of Daleen reflects very positively on her as both a person and a student because the competition for this award was quite stiff."

Detrio went on to explain that the MAAC office has chosen Berry from a field of 24 outstanding students who had qualified and applied for the honor.

MAAC Executive Director, Jim Skidmore, explained that Berry will be writing news and feature articles about MAAC for newspapers and periodicals; working with the member companies of the Governor's Office of Industrial Development; working with other agencies in North Central West Virginia to foster the initiatives of MAAC; and generally performing office duties as the need occurs.

Skidmore went on to explain that he believes Ms. Berry's work and experience at the Mid-Atlantic Aerospace Complex this summer, when combined with her academic pursuits, should indeed be instrumental in helping her reach her goal to become an air transport pilot with a major airline.

Ms. Berry, who continues to live in Kingwood with her son, Zachary, has worked periodically over the last 10 years as a reporter for newspapers in Kingwood and Morgantown, as well as in California and Texas. During that time, she received a first-place award for investigative reporting from the 1990 West Virginia Press Association Better Newspaper Contest. She also spent time as the editor-in-chief of law enforcement journals for the West Virginia Deputy Sheriffs' Association and the West Virginia Fraternal Order of Police, and most recently worked in California as a marketing coordinator for URS Greiner Woodward-Clyde, an international engineering firm.

The Mid-Atlantic Aerospace Complex, Inc., is a non-profit development and marketing corporation located at Benedum Airport and includes among its members Bombardier Aerospace Services, Fairmont State College, Aurora Flight Services, FMW Rubber Company, KCI Aviation, Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney Engine Services, the U.S. Army National Guard.