Larry Burton can give you a great answer. The Physical Plant heating and air mechanic is a Vietnam War-era U.S. Navy veteran who served aboard the attack carrier .

I was responsible for the operation and maintenance of the steam propulsion systems that moved the ship through the water and helped propel the jets off the flight deck, said Burton, who made two Mediterranean cruises, one South American cruise and one North Atlantic cruise. I was in during Vietnam, but my time was spent watching out for the other side of the world.

Burton is one of the 524 university employees who are either a military veteran or still active in the military, according to UofL Payroll Services; 189 of those served during a recognized armed conflict.

Last year G.I. Jobs magazine named UofL a military friendly school, an honor received by only 15 percent of all colleges and universities nationwide. But is UofL a military friendly employer?

Michael Curtin said it is.

Curtin, UofL’s vice president for finance and chief financial officer, is a retired brigadier general in the National Guard who served as deputy commander of the Kentucky Army National Guard. Much of his distinguished 36-year military career was spent as a UofL employee.

Curtin is quick to outline the many ways UofL is a military-friendly institution.

For one, the university created a Veterans Center with a full-time director during very tough economic times, he points out. The center is designed to accommodate the special needs of veterans returning to college. The university also offers institutional scholarships to select ROTC participating students above the amounts provided by the Departments of Army and Air Force stipends.

The university also implemented a special tuition rate for active duty service personnel that allows participants access to university academic undergraduate programs for the same rate as reimbursed by their branch of service.

Curtin also emphasized the university’s military leave policy that allows members of the National Guard and Reserve for up to 10 days per year to attend annual training without financial penalty.

According to payroll, uOFl has almost 100 employees either active or inactive in the Reserves or National Guard.

UofL also is expanding its academic partnerships with Fort Knox and the newly established Human Resource Center of Excellence, Curtin added.

Proud to Have Served

Burton, who has worked at the university for some 25 years, is proud of his service in the Navy.

It was my military training that got me the job here in the first place, he said. I cherish the memories and I am glad to have been a part of such a fine and noble institution that continues to keep us and our allies safe from oppression.

I salute those before me, those who served with me and those who are currently serving.

So, what is harder to maintain — the USS America or Belknap Campus?

The aircraft carrier would definitely be more complex, Burton said. You see, space is at a premium on any ship. And everything is all bunched together. So the valve you’re turning or the button you’re pushing better be the correct one or someone could be hurt or worse.

Belknap Campus is a bit more forgiving.

The last time the University of Louisville music major was there she was an infant, soon to be adopted by American parents. Welding grew up in Louisville and graduated from Sacred Heart Academy.

Now a member of UofL’s world-renowned Cardinal Singers, Welding was part of the choir’s latest triumphant trip overseas — one that took the ensemble to South Korea and then on to some of the finest concert halls in Taiwan and China.

For the senior soprano, traveling to the place of her birth was exciting. But the reason she was going made it even more special.

The fact that I am going under these circumstances-as a member of a choir — a recognized choir, Welding said during a pre-trip rehearsal at a Louisville church. It’s like we have a purpose for being there, and we are being recognized for being there. A specific level of excellence is going to be expected.

Welding was not on the trip in summer 2009, when the Cardinal Singers sealed their growing international reputation with a perfect showing at the First Grand Prix of Choral Music in South Korea. At the choir contest, which featured top choral groups from all over the world, the singers placed first in both the sacred music and mixed chorus categories.

That gave us outstanding exposure in Asia, which has a rich choral tradition, said Kent Hatteberg, director of UofL choral activities and of the Cardinal Singers. It was great to make a name for ourselves in that part of the world.

This summer’s trip — from July 26 to Aug. 12 — did not include competition but rather was a tour of choral festivals, among them the Taipei International Choral Festival in Taiwan and the Beijing International Choral Festival.

There’s still a lot of pressure because we have a standard, said tenor Josh Hamilton, a senior music education major. The reason that we were going to this festival is because people heard us last year in Korea when we did so well. We have to live up to that standard. We have to be just as good even though we’re not competing — just performing.

We have a reputation overseas now, added Hamilton, who made his fifth international trip with the ensemble this summer. So we have to maintain that same level of performance. There’s been a lot of pressure and a lot of push by Dr. Hatteberg for us to be as great as we can possibly be.

The choir seemed to accomplish that goal. While in Beijing, the singers were featured at length on a local as the prestigious ensemble from the United States that opened the event.

About 1,500 people came to hear the singers in Taiwan, Hatteberg said, and the audience didn’t want the show to end.

We had to stop after three encores, but the crowd wanted more, he noted.

Throughout their travels, choir members got rock-star treatment. Fans stopped students for autographs and photos, and the group sold nearly all the CDs it took, Hatteberg said.

Soprano Lydia Cox, a senior studying music education, said she enjoys the atmosphere of the festivals — and checking out other choirs.

It’s an opportunity to hear a lot of really good music — international groups that we wouldn’t be able to hear otherwise, she said.

It’s also an invaluable learning experience, Hamilton added.

It’s interesting to hear the pieces we do performed by the other choirs, he said. Because can see and hear how they do things differently and how we do things alike. We’re there to learn and sing with other great choirs.

The trip wasn’t all about singing. The choir got the chance to be tourists, seeing the Great Wall, touring the Forbidden City and experiencing other sites, sounds and culture of South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Senior Rob Carlson, a tenor 2 with the Cardinal Singers, said he prefers the musical moments, though.

When that one part of the song is coming up and you just get goose bumps up your neck when you hit this chord and to see the people in the audience just light up with you as you’re singing for them, Carlson said. For me, those are the magical moments of these trips. Those are the unforgettable moments.

Some of the experiences I’ve had with this group are just absolutely incredible.

(Editor’s Note: The Cardinal Singers will perform at the School of Music on . The group, formed in 1970 as an outreach group for UofL, has been at the top of international performance and competition since 2004 when it won two first-place prizes at the International Choir Olympics in Bremen, Germany.)

Law students Duffy Trager and Rachel Carmona argued for the team, which had to take on a case involving recidivism in immigration law. Maria Mourad worked on the brief and preparation for oral arguments.

We really put ourselves through the paces before we got there, said Trager of the team’s intense preparation for the event.

Carmona agreed that the secret to their success was practice, practice and more practice. The more practice you can get, the better your chances-and we practiced all the time, said Carmona, who credited the team’s coach, professor Enid Trucios-Haynes, and facilitator Jamie Izlar for preparing them.

We had so much help.

The team from Louisville defeated competitors from Stetson, Howard, California-Davis and Harvard universities in the preliminary rounds before beating the University of Maryland in the semi-finals and Georgetown University in the championship round.

In the finals, the teams argued before federal judges Edith Brown Clement of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Maryanne Trump Barry of the 3rd Circuit and William Fletcher of the 9th Circuit.

The victory was UofL’s first in the NYU competition, although a team came close two years ago when it finished runner-up.

I am very proud of Rachel and Duffy, and their commitment to the competition and the field of immigration law, said Trucios-Haynes, a nationally recognized scholar in immigration law. Both of them aspire to practice in the field of immigration law. The legal issues in this competition are complex and very technical.  In fact, one of the issues is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court because of a split in decisions at the federal court of appeals level.

Trucios-Haynes credits the team’s success to their own hard work, but also the commitment of a community of local lawyers who helped as practice judges, fellow law professors who also served as practice judges, as well as the team facilitator, Jamie Izlar, who did an outstanding job of bringing all of the practice judges together.

In all, the 2009-2010 school year was another banner year for UofL, which has a strong tradition in moot court competition.

Moot court competitions are an important feature of our program of study, Trucios-Haynes said. Students usually write a legal brief that is submitted and evaluated, and then participate in an intense oral competition. It provides a key opportunity to learn practical skills.

UofL teams placed second in the International Commercial Arbitration competition at Loyola University and the Kentucky Intrastate Mock Trial Competition. A UofL team also submitted the national second-place brief in the Saul Lefkowitz National Trademark Competition.

The university also had semi-finalist teams in the American Bar Association Client Counseling Competition, the National Animal Law competition and the Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Competition (Intellectual Property Law) and quarter finalists in the National Health Law Moot Court Competition and the Florida Bar Association National Tax Law Competition.

The law school had 18 moot court teams this year that included 50 to 60 students-all second-year law students or higher. Faculty members as well as local attorneys coach and facilitate the teams.

But the one honor he was most proud of came in 1984 when the University of Louisville Board of Trustees created the Woodford R. Porter Scholarship for minority students.

The Society of Porter Scholars will celebrate the scholarship’s silver anniversary April 9 at the Mellwood Arts and Entertainment Center with the Porter Ball 2010: a Celebration of 25 Years of Scholarship. Over the past two and a half decades, the Porter Society has grown into UofL’s largest African American scholarship organization — built on its foundational four pillars of heritage, scholarship, leadership and service throughout the university and community.

The scholarship and legacy of our father continues to give our family a sense of fulfillment because we continue to be involved with the scholars, said Woodford Porter’s daughter Marie Porter. We feel it’s important to continue to articulate the values that our father and mother [Harriett Porter] felt were so important.

Each year UofL awards the Porter Scholarship to promising African American undergraduate students. The Society of Porter Scholars provides academic and social support to recipients, promoting interaction and enhancing leadership opportunities, while developing and encouraging professional and graduate education.

It all follows in the tradition of the scholarships namesake.

Woodford R. Porter Sr., who died in 2006, was the patriarch of one of Louisville’s most prominent African American families and owner of A.D. Porter and Sons Inc., funeral home, the area’s longest-operating, privately held African American funeral home. As a young man, he grew up on Louisville’s west end where he experienced racial segregation firsthand.

But that didn’t stop him from becoming a leader in the city’s civic, business and education communities. In 1958 Porter became the first African American to serve on the old Louisville school board. He was appointed to UofL’s Board of Trustees in 1968, putting him in the somewhat strange position of being a leader at a university that did not allow him to enroll when he graduated from Louisville’s Central High School in 1936. At that time, UofL  was not yet integrated.

Porter was the first African American on the UofL Board of Trustees and was a key player during the school’s transition from tht of a semi-private municipal university to a full-fledged state university.

In 24 years as a UofL trustee — he retired from the board in 1991 — Porter served four terms as chairman and was a major player in persuading Kentucky’s higher education council to designate UofL as Kentucky’s major urban university.

The university developed a Minority Retention Plan in the early 1980s when the courts found Kentucky to be in violation of the law by maintaining vestiges of segregation in its higher education system. The UofL Board of Trustees developed and established the Woodford R. Porter scholarship program in 1985 as part of that retention plan, with 50 students who were selected by a committee.

Since then, thousands of UofL students have benefitted from the Porter Scholarship, including Tomarra Adams, a 1996 psychology graduate who went on to earn her master’s and doctorate degrees in social work at UofL.

Opportunity is the one-word answer she gives when asked what the scholarship meant to her.

Although I wasn’t aware of the legacy of Woodford Porter when I came to UofL, I am honored to be one of the thousands who have represented everything that was envisioned for the scholarship program, said Adams, who now is assistant dean of advising and student services in the UofL College of Arts and Sciences and an assistant professor of Pan-African studies. Without it, I would never had been able to pursue my undergraduate degree here at UofL and I can’t even imagine how my life would be different without having this as my foundation.

For Nichole M. Burruss, who works in UofL’s Honors Program, the Society of Porter Scholars became her UofL family. She was humbled, she said, by the efforts of the African American students who had come before her, and wanted to epitomize the values of the society and to make the scholarship’s namesake proud.

Going to the University of Louisville on a Porter scholarship was an invaluable life experience for me; one in which I matured from a curious teen to mature young adult, Burruss said. And I have the society’s advising staff and my Porter peers to thank for helping shape me into the person I have become.

For five current and very entrepreneurial seniors, the brush with the real world they received during their engineering co-ops was downright inspirational and led them to start their own technology firm-Inven LLC.

They founded Inven – whose name is a combination of the words innovation and venture (and coming very close to invent) – on Jan. 1 as a service-based firm that specializes in technology and product development. Its services include patent searching, intellectual property development, prototyping and product design.

So if you come up with an idea for a new tape recorder, saidInven CEO Alex Frommeyer, pointing to the reporter’s tape recorder in front of him, you would bring your idea to us. We would do a market feasibility study to determine if this idea would sell when it hit the market. If we determine that it will, we’ll do patent searching. Is there intellectual property that is covered with this type of device?

And then we proceed into the design and prototyping phase … Eventually we will have an improved tape recorder.

Inven is working with two active clients – one an established medical device designer, the other a startup business.

We’re helping develop two brand new technologies right now, Frommeyer said. We’re very grateful. They have very different approaches and different types of products – both very exciting and engaging.

After finding the two companies in Louisville, Frommeyer approached them hat in hand last year before Inven was established. The pitch went something like this: Look, I’m a junior in college and I am going to use the rest of my undergrad at UofL to try and learn how to [start and run a technology and product development company], Frommeyer recalled.

The fact there are only two clients right now is on purpose, he said. We don’t want to take on, or even try to take on, too much work right now. It’s very important for us to do a very thorough job. It’s imperative to do everything we can to gain the experience and satisfy the clients we do have in every way that we can. We need to establish a good business reputation and not overextend ourselves.

The five friends who make up Inven are Frommeyer; Daniel Dykes, design director; Joe Schab, research director; Tony Kremer, development director; and Alex Curry, director of patent research.

We all have similar strengths, Frommeyer said. We’re similar enough to see eye to eye on the big things and different enough to have a lot of opinions and a lot of different ideas. That’s a good dynamic for a young business.

All are from northern Kentucky – three from Campbell Country, two from Boone County – but they didn’t solidify their friendship until freshman year, a time when they immediately began discussing the possibility of starting their own business.

On the heels of their co-ops – which were with big oil companies, a major medical developer and a local construction firm – they decided that the time was right, Frommeyer said.

Still being students offers several advantages, he added.

We have a low-risk profile. None of us have wives or kids, so now is a good time to start because we really only need to be self-sustaining in order to get through these first challenging years with the business.

And, Inven also is positioned well in the current economic climate, Frommeyer said.

As the economy starts to hopefully build back, we can build with it, he said. Starting now and having some time when nobody is really doing especially well and having an opportunity to be a few years into the business as the economy gets back going could end up being great timing for us.

The members of Inven are set to graduate from UofL in May 2011.

 It was all preparation for this Sunday when Korir is set to compete in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, one of the largest events of its kind in the world. The event draws scores of marathoners of all shapes, sizes, experiences and aspirations. Most of his fellow runners will be happy to achieve a personal best time, qualify for other marathons, or simply finish the race, but Korir’s aim is somewhat higher.

The native Kenyan, who graduated from UofL last year with a biology degree, is trying to become one of the top marathoners in the world. After only two career races, he’s knocking on the door.

One year ago, competing in his first 26.2-mile test—the 2008 Chicago Marathon—Korir surprised the field by placing fourth despite starting five minutes behind the 20 elite runners who had earned a spot at the front of the more than 40,000 other participants. He posted an impressive time of 2 hours, 13 minutes and 53 seconds.

If that didn’t get the attention of the marathon world, what he did in California on May 24 did. This time starting with the elite runners, Korir won the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon. Not only did he win the race over several seasoned marathoners, many of whom Korir admired as a kid, he set a new course record of 2:08:24.

“You never know what is pushing you,” said Korir, a deeply spiritual and devout Christian. “I think it’s one moment God had planned for me, and he definitely knows.”

The win was lucrative for Korir. He earned $100,000 as part of The Challenge, a battle-of-the-sexes format that allowed the top women to start nearly 17 minutes ahead of the men. Korir passed the women’s field at the 24-mile mark. He also picked up an additional $60,000 for time bonuses.

Suddenly, agents approached him. Some promised to make him a millionaire, but those promises fell on disinterested ears.

“My goal in life is not to be a millionaire,” said Korir, who did become a first-time homeowner over the summer. “My goal is to do what God wants me to do and to do it with passion. If God wants me to be a maintenance guy right now, I’m doing it—and I’m doing it with passion and giving it 100 percent. I give everything I do 100 percent.”

And while Korir has signed with an agent, he continues to rely heavily on a strong support group he has in Louisville.

“There’s something about Louisville,” he said. “I feel like I have a family here. I love the people. Without these people I would not be where I am.”

After his L.A. win, he also looked to follow a tradition started by previous successful African marathoners — that of using his prize money to help people in his homeland. Specifically, he wants to start an orphanage in his hometown of Kitale, Kenya.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “I was born into a very poor family. My passion is to help poor children. God is giving me an opportunity to make a difference.”

Korir has not been back to Kenya since the New Year of 2008. His holiday trip home to visit family and do missionary work took a frightening turn with the outbreak of civil war. In Korir’s phone calls back to Louisville, people like UofL track coach Ron Mann could hear “real distress in his voice.”

“It was scary,” Mann recalled. “We realized we had to get him out of Kenya, and an army of people here in Louisville went to work.”

The international flavor of collegiate track and field was a big help, the coach said. “We’re used to dealing with immigration issues, with U.S. embassies and all bureaucracy.

“It was a cooperative effort between him on the inside and us working on the outside. He was in the middle of it and he knew how to maneuver on the ground, to find ways to get where he needed to be, and we knew how to find out where he could go, so he could get back.”

Korir said the experience made him a better person with a deeper appreciation for life.

“Whenever I think about it—and I don’t like to think about it—it makes me thankful for everything I’ve got. I look at life from a different perspective, he said.

“I saw huge houses—rich people’s houses burned. Huge cars burned. People’s material goods, you can lose it like that. You can spend your life trying to make money to buy this house or buy this car and then in five minutes it’s gone.”

Korir so far has been unable to return to Kenya to start laying down the foundation for the orphanage, but he had a willing assistant this past summer in girlfriend Tarah McCay.

The UofL senior, herself a standout distance runner and team captain on the cross-country and track teams, traveled to Kenya to scout locations, work in different orphanages and report back to Korir.

For six weeks in July and August, McKay split her time among the cities and towns of Nairobi, Eldoret and Kitale, staying with Korir’s relatives.

“A major reason I wanted to go there was to learn about the culture, learn about where Wesley came from and learn the language,” McKay said.

Korir, she said, knows the exact spot where he’d like to see the orphanage—near the house where he grew up.

“He told me over the phone where he was envisioning it,” McKay said. “He told me, ‘At the top of this hill near this school. Close to this road.’

“It’s still mostly an idea. Right now, it’s about starting a foundation, developing a mission statement, a website. Get the message out.”

While in Kenya, McKay talked to people about the war.

“Feelings are suppressed,” she said. “There are clearly still grievances there. But they know it’s not productive for their country to continue fighting. They seemed thankful for normalcy—because during the conflict they couldn’t get food for a month, couldn’t leave their houses, couldn’t call people.

“It was kind of humbling (talking to them about it).”

The challenges of Korir’s life, including his impoverished childhood, Mann said, have shaped his winning attitude.

“Shelter over your head, clothes on your back, shoes on your feet: to him, these are all blessings. The things we take for granted for him are truly blessings. We can learn a lot from someone like Wesley.”

And for Korir’s running future, Mann noted there are time barriers to becoming an elite marathoner—walls a runner needs to break through to get to the top. The first is to break 2 hours and 20 minutes. He did that in Chicago last year. The second is to break 2:10. He did that in his Los Angeles victory in May.

“Now the question is: Can he become a great marathoner, one of the truly elite?” Mann said. “That requires running down in the 2:04 to 2:06 area.”

Korir wants to have no regrets after Chicago—or any race.

“Normally, when you don’t do good, what you do is look back and try to figure out what you did wrong, he said. I just want to make sure I do everything right and let God do the rest.”