AFCEAN of the Month, May 2023
AFCEAN of the Month
Gloria McKearney joined the San Diego Chapter Executive Committee in 2017 after a highly successful 30-year career as an educator, serving as a STEM teacher and the principal of two schools for almost 10 years, where she worked with students from every demographic, displaying her passion for advancing the education opportunities for disadvantaged communities, particularly in the STEM-related fields. McKearney quickly became a key member of the chapter’s leadership team as the vice president for the Education Committee (EDCOM) and STEM Scholarship Program chairman.
McKearney rejuvenated the STEM Scholarship Program by spreading the program’s outreach to a wider range of candidates through her personal contacts with educators and science coordinators, increasing its overall advertising across San Diego County school districts, partnering with the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, emphasizing girls and disadvantaged students and guiding it through the COVID-19 downturn.
Each year McKearney directs and manages the award of up to 12 scholarships in four program categories McKearney has always advocated for the advancement of STEM education for women, and 26 of the 33 2020-2022 AFCEA Scholarship awardees were women. During the annual scholarship season, McKearney maintains personal contact with each award candidate and hosts a formal evening scholarship award event each summer at the University Club in downtown San Diego for the award winners and their families, introducing them to the members of the San Diego AFCEA Executive Committee and board of directors. As spokesperson and ambassador for the chapter’s Scholarship Program, McKearney emerged as the face of the chapter’s EDCOM and served as a model for the younger AFCEANs and Emerging Leaders through her dedication to education and her volunteering spirit.
In addition to her AFCEA duties, McKearney is a member of the Eastlake Education Foundation board of directors and Eastlake High School Alumni Advisory Panel. Working with students in the Society of Women Engineers, she has guided high school girls to select STEM majors in college. McKearney is also the scholarship chair for the San Diego Military Advisory Committee Foundation, a nonprofit organization supporting veteran and military students at San Diego region universities.
By emphasizing the importance of STEM in the defense community, McKearney has increased the awareness of the advantages of a STEM career, which has challenged chapter members to sponsor STEM scholarships and contribute more to the scholarship efforts.
Due to her continued exceptional and significant contributions and support for the chapter’s Scholarship and STEM initiatives over the past three years, McKearney was recently awarded the San Diego Chapter Volunteer of the Year Award at the 2022 Awards Ceremony that was held in conjunction with the chapter’s 2022 C4ISR Symposium at the University of California San Diego Park & Market in downtown San Diego in October 2022. The symposium helped raise over $50,000 in scholarship funding for 2023.
In recognition of her leadership, innovation and dedication to the San Diego Chapter and community, AFCEA proudly names Gloria McKearney AFCEAN of the month.
