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Hilf moves STEM ed with Raytheon

When thinking about Raytheon Co., one doesn’t immediately conjure up images of headphone-wearing gorillas and anthropomorphic hot dogs running through a surreal landscape solving math problems (Top-secret components of the defense giant’s Future Combat Systems project, perhaps?).

One person who does deal with the problem-solving gorilla and hot dog quite a bit is Raytheon’s vice president for community relations, Kristin Hilf. The cartoon characters are part of a math-based computer game, which is in turn part of Raytheon’s MathMovesU program, which Hilf oversees.

MathMovesU is more than a computer game — it is a charitable effort to encourage middle school students to get interested in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as a strategic investment in the company’s workforce of the future. MathMovesU also features a scholarship component. Hilf said the company has given out $1 million a year in what Hilf calls “camperships.” These are $1,000 scholarships middle school students can use for space, computer, marine biology or robotics camps, or save for college. The student’s school also receives a matching grant. This month, Hilf’s department announced that students who have won camperships in the past will be eligible for one of 30 annual, $20,000 merit scholarships if they major in a STEM field in college.

The web-based MathMovesU game is intended to be played at home, outside a school curriculum, and Hilf says it has received 318,000 visits and 229,000 unique users so far this year. The game is intended to show students how math in involved in their interests — music, fashion, sports and travel, for example.

“It doesn’t look like they’re doing math homework,” Hilf said.

The Hampden native and University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate said people are usually surprised when they find out the maker of the Patriot missile is behind such charitable efforts.

“I think I have the best job in the company,” said Hilf, who joined Raytheon in 2006.

Priming the talent pipeline

But the program also serves a strategic purpose for the Waltham-based company. The United States ranked 28th globally in math literacy and 24th in science literacy, according to a 2007 international assessment of 15-year-olds. The U.S. also ranks 20th in the proportion of 24-year-olds who earn degrees in natural science or engineering. This is especially important to defense contractors like Raytheon, which needs most of its employees to be U.S. citizens who can earn military security clearances.

Isa Zimmerman, senior fellow of the UMass President’s Office’s STEM Initiative, said companies like Raytheon are in a unique position to take the lead on the country’s STEM problem.

Due to the financial crisis, Zimmerman said the private sector will be the only source of funding for STEM efforts in the near term, though she fears the downturn may also dry up that well. In the meantime, the STEM initiative is getting its education plan in place.

“We’re really worried a lot of our work will come to a standstill,” she said.