McCullough Engineering Services supports MSU engineering students with new scholarships

Shane McCullough

McCullough Engineering Services, owned by 1992 Mississippi State alumnus Shane McCullough, has established two scholarships within the Bagley College of Engineering to lessen financial obstacles for small-town engineering students.

The McCullough Engineering Services Endowed Scholarship and the McCullough Engineering Services Annual Scholarship support full-time students in the Bagley College of Engineering with a minimum 30 ACT score and who exemplify strong leadership and communication skills. Recipients must maintain a minimum 3.75 GPA as freshmen and a minimum 3.5 GPA for continuing students. Preference is given to students from rural Mississippi towns.

McCullough said he was partly inspired to create these scholarships through the education he received at MSU.

“I am extremely proud to be an engineer from Mississippi State,” he said.

He was initially inspired to give back to MSU students after a dinner with alumnus Jerry Thames, who created the Thames Scholars Annual Scholarship McCullough’s oldest daughter received from the university.

“What Thames did is set up an endowment scholarship that will outlive him, and I said, ‘How awesome is that?’” I looked at my business, how it had grown and my relationship with MSU,” he said. “I reached out through the same channels he used here about setting up a scholarship.”

McCullough said he aimed these scholarships toward students from rural towns because of his experience living in small-town Ruth.

“Kids from small towns don’t realize they have the same opportunities that are there financially as the kids from larger cities like Biloxi or Jackson,” he said. “I think students from those larger schools are taught all the ways to get financial assistance, but that isn’t always the case in rural school districts. I didn’t really get that education coming from a small town and a small school.”

Since graduating from MSU with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering, McCullough has spent his career at home and abroad working on ships for Disney Cruise Line, Carnival Cruise Line, the U.S. Navy, and multiple U.S. based commercial vessels. In 1999, he opened MES as a side business after returning to the U.S. from Italy.

While maintaining his other jobs, MES grew into a $10 million business. He said the company does shipyard engineering support from Galveston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida and has completed system integration projects overseas and other U.S. areas.

“We go wherever the ships go, and the ships go everywhere,” McCullough said.

He hopes to continue growing his business by hiring as many MSU engineers as possible.

“I’m really proud of the education here. I like the demeanor of the people that come out of here. The engineers are really hard working,” he said. “They can be focused, and they’re very polite. I’m not seeing that a lot with students from other universities.”

He hopes students receiving these scholarships will take pride in being an engineer from MSU.

“At any given time, there will be four students here receiving financial assistance,” he said. “Once again, I’m extremely proud to be an engineer here, and I hope these recipients will be as well.”