Charles J. Berkel Memorial Scholarship | UC Berkeley
2024 Submissions are closed | 2025 Applications will open Fall 2025
The Charles J. Berkel Memorial Scholarship – University of California, Berkeley. provides an awards to students from UC Berkeley who are in good standing and enrolled full-time in an undergraduate program with focus on civil engineering or construction management.
The scholarship honors Charles J. Berkel, a distinguished charter member of DFI.
Award
One scholarship, in the amount of $5,000 will be awarded in 2024. Awards may be used for funding tuition, fees, books, and/or educational living expenses.
The winner of the scholarship will be notified by the DFI Educational Trust on or about December 15, 2024.
Scholarship check, payable to the student, will be sent in January 2025 after proof of enrollment and other required information is received by the DFI Educational Trust.
Eligibility & Requirements
The fund is exclusively offered to individuals at the University of California at Berkeley. Please direct all inquiries and questions by email to scholarships@dfi.org.
*Scholarships are awarded based on standards that do not discriminate relative to the applicant’s race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or ethnic origin.
Eligibility
- Applicants must be currently enrolled full-time (as defined by the school) in a graduate or undergraduate civil engineering program at UC Berkeley.
- The minimum GPA required is 3.0/4.0 (alternatively, a “B” or its equivalent).
- Applicants must demonstrate an interest in the deep foundations industry.
- Applicants must demonstrate financial need.
Required Documents
- Personal essay, no more than 500 words, highlighting why the applicant chose to pursue a deep foundations- related career, extra-curricular activities, leadership capabilities, long term plans and goals, and any special financial need.
- One-page resume, including work experience, honors, activities and organizations.
- One official transcript.
- Two letters of recommendation, one of which must be completed by a faculty member at the applicant’s school.
Submission Requirements
- All items on the scholarship application must be completed. Applications missing any of the required items will not be considered.
- The application and all supporting documentation must be submitted no later than October 31, 2024.
- The DFI Educational Trust will notify all applicants of the result of their applications on or about December 15, 2024.
- Applicants, as a condition of eligibility for being considered for a scholarship, must consent to their resume being posted on the DFI website for review by DFI members as potential employers.
- Applicants may be required to participate in a personal telephone interview with a Trust Board member.
- If selected as a recipient, as a condition of funding, applicant agrees to participate in a follow-up career survey that will be sent by the Trust at some point after the applicant’s graduation.
Charles J. Berkel (1925-2013)
Charles J. Berkel graduated from the University of Illinois in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. A year later he began his career in deep foundation construction working for Intrusion-Prepakt in Chicago. During his employment there he was the project engineer for the first commercial project supported on ACIP piles in the United States. In 1959 he resigned from Prepakt and started his own company specializing in Pressure Grouting and the installation of Auger Pressure Grouted (APG) piles. Over the decades, he grew the company to become one of the largest piling contractors in the U.S.
Some of his noteworthy accomplishments along the way are: designing and constructing of equipment needed for APG piles; 1996 business expansion to include a separate division for Sheeting, Shoring and Underpinning; patents for equipment, and tools for safety and efficiency in field operations; and development of the APG Displacement pile.
Berkel was a Charter Member of DFI, a recipient of the 2007 DFI Distinguished Service Award, and a major donor to the DFI Educational Trust Scholarship Program. He died on November 4, 2013, at age 88.
