A year after high school, where in the world is George Ouimet?

MILLBROOK— When George Ouimet was a student at Millbrook High School, he was a very busy young man. A member of the UN Club, the drama club and many other clubs and activities, he also worked  at Merritt Bookstore for four years. Shortly after graduation in 2016, Ouimet also ran the annual Scott Myers 5 K race, in honor of the late owner of Merritt Bookstore. This summer, Ouimet worked at the Town of Washington Summer Camp. 

Asked then what he attributed his success to, he said he thought it was due to, “Being a big fish in a little pond.” He extolled the virtues of Millbrook Central School District, and that there were a great many opportunities for students there.

Ouimet comes from a supportive family. His parents, George and Patty Ouimet, and three older sisters, Julia, Rita and Audrey, round out the family of six. Ouimet said growing up with so many females helped to develop his sensitive side, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Ouimet went off to college last year, as so many of the Millbrook students do. Enrolled at SUNY Buffalo, he realized he was now “a very small fish in a very large pond.”

The 19-year-old said he missed the tight-knit community of Millbrook and his family while at college, but overcame both depression and untreated ADHD with counseling. 

Ouimet is in the Aerospace Program at Buffalo, and enthusiastically spoke about the program and the Nanosatellite Laboratory, which is completely run by students and is funded by NASA and the Air Force Research Lab.

“We currently have three satellites in production,” he said, “Glados, SORA and LinkSat, which is my current project.” Ouimet is the lead for the structures subsystem of LinkSat; his duties entail assembling computer generated models, analyzing the structural integrity of the satellite and designing parts to ensure the structure maintains proper form when launching. All of the work is done on his laptop, he said, which he’s continued throughout the  summer. 

His satellite will launch in spring of 2018, and then his job will be done.    

“This has single-handedly been the best experience of my college career so far,” Ouimet said. “There are so many connections with very important people and it essentially is a college-to-workforce pipeline.

“It is a shame to see that people have such an apathy for science. NASA is one of the most integral pieces in international science, yet only one-tenth of a penny goes toward its funding,” he added.

Ouimet said there was stagnation in science after the U.S. won the space race because much of the motivation was to beat the communists. 

“However,” he said, “in recent years interest in science and space technology are at an all-time high for one reason: climate change. We are on a path from which there is no turning back.

“Regarding our destroying of our natural habitat, governments and corporations are researching new planets for us to turn to in case of a global catastrophe,” Ouimet said. “There’s research being done to enable us to travel and colonize Mars. Because we’re destroying our planet at an alarming rate, people like myself are joining the fight to save our planet and invent the technologies that will help us do that.”  

Ouimet returned to Buffalo on Aug. 20, starting his sophomore year there following a summer of work. He also had the chance to spend a little downtime in Colorado with his family.

This ambitious college man said he hopes to be chief engineer on his next project, and perhaps pursue a Ph.D. in aerospace. Whatever he does chances are Ouimet will be working to help save this planet, and possibly lead his fellow citizens to new ones.