2021 Jim Ditch Legacy Scholarship Recipients Announced

Long Beach, CA: The California Transit Training Consortium (CTTC) held its 14th Annual Jim Ditch Education Fund awards presentation last month, awarding $14,500 in combined scholarships to help students in their educational endeavors toward a career in the transportation industry. Colleges represented by the 13 awardees included Rio Hondo College, College of the Desert, and Villanova University.

The event, the CTTC’s first formal awards ceremony, was hosted by Paula Faust, recently retired Deputy Director, City of Laguna Beach, who is also a Board Member of the CTTC. “We did things a little bit differently this year,” Faust began. “This year, we did an online giving campaign.” Faust further explained that the usual annual golf tournament was transformed into an opportunity for CTTC’s vendor partners to directly sponsor the Jim Ditch Scholarship Awards. Vendor partners included Clean Energy, Complete Coach Works, WAVE Technologies, New Flyer of America, Gillig Transportation, Clever Devices, and Green Power Motor Company.

To kick off the giving of the awards, Rolando Cruz, Chief Transportation Officer of Culver CityBus, explained why the Jim Ditch Scholarship Awards are so important. “[Jim Ditch] understood that the world of maintenance was growing and he was a visionary,” Cruz said. “He knew we needed to be more adapted — new technology was coming on board, and he had a vision of doing something about it.”