A soft-spoken academic who says his life was changed by an organization and a pair of dedicated professors has just received a $2 million grant to help see other students get the same break he did.

Derrick Booth, director of the Butte College Math, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program, has been awarded a $2 million National Science Foundation grant to organize a statewide system aimed at helping women and minority students discover their full potential in the sciences.

Booth, who earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Chico State University and went on to get his master's and doctorate degrees in environmental engineering at the University of Washington, said the program he now heads at Butte is much more than a job to him.

He said it was the spiritual ancestor of MESA that put him on the career path he followed.

Booth concedes as a new kid at Chico State, fresh out of Burbank High School, he was not a stellar student.

"When I came out of high school I was kind of one of those hot-shot, know-it-all kinds of kids," he recalled.

His high school years had given him an interest in physics, and endowed with a lot of innate intelligence, high school hadn't been much of a challenge for Booth. But that's before he ran head-on into Chico State professor Michael R. McGie.

"I got my first F' on one of his exams," said Booth.

That grade came as something of a shock. Looking back, Booth says it could well have been enough to drive him out of physics as a major, had it not been for McGie.

McGie called Booth into his office to say he was convinced the grade did not reflect the young man's intelligence or capability, and offered to do what was necessary to help Booth succeed.

"Just the fact he took the time made the campus seem a lot friendlier and made physics seem like something I can do," said Booth.

He said physics professor Louis Buckholtz also reached out to help him succeed.

Booth said the need for support wasn't entirely a matter of pure academics.

As a young African-American, Booth said there were some special challenges.

"I was in a field where, at the time, I was one of the few African-American graduates out of the physics department."

While, with a "hard" science like physics, which is based so much on mathematics, there is no particular cultural bias that limits the success of minorities, Booth said were still significant hurdles.

"When you are trying to establish, you're trying to get used to the new rigors associated with that particular program, you can become very isolated," explained Booth.

He credits the combined efforts of McGie and Buckholtz, he also says, what was then called the "Minority Engineering Program," helped him make the adjustments that led to his current career.

The memory of that is what brought Booth back to Chico, and to his current job.

The proposal that earned Booth and Butte College the grant is called "Be a Star," which stands for "Basic and Advanced Science and Technology Academics and Research."

This spring 150 members of the MESA programs on 35 community college campuses statewide, will be invited to one of a pair of leadership conferences.

These students will take part in a range of leadership training exercises, and 75 students from this group will be invited to one of two six-week summer programs.

As part of a partnership between Butte College and the university, one program will take place at Chico State, and the other will take place at a campus in Southern California, according to Booth.

Booth said the 75 participants will not necessarily be the top students in the MESA programs, but the goal is to identify individuals who already have an interest in science and technology but may not have believed they have the "aptitude to do it."

At the summer program the students will divide their time between mornings spent doing hands-on physics experiments and producing reports on their findings, and afternoons spent building computers, essentially from the ground up.

The funds will pay for student stipends, cover the costs of part-time employees, and the expenses related to facilities.

The 75 summer participants will also be trained as "math facilitators," who will take what they have learned back to their home community college campuses, where they will be paid to help other students.

Booth said the teaching will provide the students with some money, while increasing their own confidence about what they know and can do.

Before coming to Butte four years ago, Booth worked outside of education including with the Environmental Protection Agency, and while he enjoyed his work, it wasn't what gave him the most joy.

He said he wanted to get back into education, and, from his perspective, professional success in life "all comes down to educational access."

Booth said that is what MESA is about.

He explained he has always received "the most pleasure from was helping students get through (to their goals) to obtain their degrees."