Our Vision Statement:

Students today - Technology leaders tomorrow.

Our Mission Statement:

To enable out-of-school organizations, especially those focused on the underserved, to deliver fun, hands-on STEM education activities to grow the number of students entering technical career pathways.

Why LET’S GO Boys & Girls?

Our country is facing a significant shortage of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Over 20% of the current professionals in technical fields will be retiring in the next 10 years. Today 50% of our scientists were born in foreign countries. But this will not be the case in the future as foreign born students attending our technical universities are returning to their home countries in far greater numbers. Only 4.2% of the entering 4 million 9th graders in our country graduate from college with a technical degree. We need more American born students entering our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) educational pipeline and joining the ranks of innovators to sustain our country’s position of the technology leader of the world. Our future economic and national defense position in the world depends on the quality and quantity of our country’s STEM students

LET’S GO is a new program that is inspiring and supporting boys and girls to become professionals in technology fields so vital to our county. Women and non-Asian minorities are under-represented in technical professions. For this reason, we are focusing our attention on girls and boys with minority backgrounds from low income, underserved communities. These children are not always receiving the encouragement and the guidance to help them become STEM professionals. LET’S GO Boys and Girls will help out-of-school organization deliver fun, hands-on STEM education activities to increase STEM interest and increase STEM proficiency in our youth.

Founder

Dr. Corky is the name the boys and girls in the LET’S GO program call Clark ‘Corky’ Graham, PhD. A Naval Academy and MIT graduate in Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Graham served for 30 years as a commissioned officer in the US Navy and 14 years as an executive in industry. Dr. Graham commanded one of the Navy’s major R & D Centers, was program manager of Navy R & D Programs, and technical director of two of the most successful shipbuilding programs in modern history - the Arliegh Burke Destroyer (DDG 51 class) and the Zuwalt Destroyer (DDG 1000). After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Graham joined industry where he became a Senior Vice President in Northrop Grumman’s Shipbuilding Sector.

Dr. Graham is a systems architect with a passion for inspiring and managing integration and collaboration on a large scale. The LET’S GO program he has founded is structured to augment the formal elementary, middle, and high school educational system. The LET’S GO program is designed to become an integral part of out-of-school organizations such as Boys and Girls Clubs and Y’s. One of his guiding principles: There are insufficient time and resources to reinvent the wheel. We will draft on the existing out-of-school organizational infrastructure and the extensive after school STEM activities such as US FIRST. LET’S GO will enable, facilitate, integrate, motivate, and coordinate existing organizations and programs to deliver fun, hands-on STEM education activities to large numbers of boys and girls. Our presence will provide experiences for boys and girls that just might be the tipping point between a child becoming a high school dropout or a professional scientist or engineer. LET’S GO make a difference!

Partnerships

The LET’S GO program was first launched in January 2009 as a pilot STEM education program in the five Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis & Anne Arundel County.

The program has expanded into the Y of Central Maryland. The key business model of LET’S GO is to partner with existing out-of-school organizations that focus on education and career development as part of integrated youth development programs that develop the whole boy and whole girl.

LET’S GO is interested in establishing partnership with out-of-school organizations to apply the successful operating model that is producing measurable results in our two flagship partnerships, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Annapolis & Anne Arundel County and the Y of Central Maryland. Contact us if you are interested in exploring a partnership that will grow the number of students entering technical career pathways.