PV alumnus receives honor from NASA

Last July NASA reaffirmed the oft-repeated motto of this university: Prairie View produces productive people.
On July 1, during the week of the shuttle launch of the STS-121, NASA awarded Kofi S. Burney, son of Ulysses E. Burney and Bettye M. Burney, the Space Flight Awareness Launch Honoree Award. Burney, who was a 1991 honor graduate of Cass Technical High School, attended Prairie View A&M and graduated in 1996 with honors. He went on to attend the University of Houston for post-graduate studies, where he also graduated with honors in 2001. The STS-121, the 115th space shuttle flight which Burney contributed his efforts to, will continue to test new equipment and procedures that increase the safety of space shuttles. It also will perform maintenance on the International Space Station and deliver more supplies and cargo for future station expansion. The Space Flight Awareness Award, or SFA, is among the highest presented by NASA for its first-level management positions and below.
The award honors employees for their dedication to quality work and flight safety. Recipients are rewarded with a visit to a space facility in Orlando, Florida as a NASA VIP. The award is only given when an employee contributes beyond the normal work requirements, attains a particular program goal, acts as a key player in developing a beneficial process improvement, contributes to a major cost savings, is instrumental in developing modification to hardware, software, or materials that increase reliability, efficiency, or performance. Presently working as a senior network engineer with Lockheed, Burney has recently been promoted to a position with NASA.