Meet the winner of The News & Observer and Herald-Sun’s Education Superhero poll

Tim Velegol has worked with U.S. Navy officers and NASA scientists, but the engineer knew he always wanted to be a classroom teacher.

Seventeen years ago, Velegol made the career switch from being an engineer to teaching engineering at Riverside High School in Durham.

Now the readers of The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun have voted Velegol, 62, as this year’s Triangle Education Superhero winner.

“I firmly believe that my selection as a Triangle Education Superhero is a reflection on the efforts of the extraordinary engineering faculty and outstanding academic instructors at Riverside High School, without whom a rigorous program like this would not survive,” said Velegol, the engineering program director at Riverside.

“It is through the hard work of these people, the efforts of the students and families inspired by them, and the ongoing support of the CTE Central Office that we’ve been able to serve the Durham community with the goal to empower these children to be future ready. They are all superheroes.”

But Velegol’s many supporters say he deserves the accolades for all the hard work he’s put in to make Riverside’s engineering program nationally known.

“Mr. Velegol is mind-blowing,” said Christine Barboriak, a Riverside High parent who nominated Velegol. “The amount of work that he does and the amount of care he shows in the students is amazing.”

Worked on nuclear reactors

Velegol is a native of West Virginia who can trace his interest in education to hanging around his maternal grandparents. His grandfather was a math teacher and high school football coach. His grandmother was an elementary school special education teacher.

But Velegol opted to pursue engineering and graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in mechanical engineering.

His career path took him to General Electric, where he became a licensed nuclear plant operations engineer. Velegol spent six years working around nuclear reactors as he trained Naval officers to operate the Trident class submarine.

“It inculcated in me a desire to be mission driven for whatever I pursued in life,” he said.

But the young engineer also wanted to see the world so he embarked on several job changes, including interning with a French automobile parts manufacturer in Paris. He also worked in management at Barnes & Noble, opening new bookstores.

Velegol returned to his engineering roots in 2000 doing aerospace engineering for a NASA subcontractor. He was involved in the management of the Aqua and Aura satellite missions to study Earth’s atmosphere and climate.

Midlife career change

By 2006, Velegol said he felt he could financially afford the switch from engineering to teaching.

”It’s been a wild ride, but one of the deep drives I’ve had is to want to teach,” he said.

Velegol initially turned his attention to the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics, a residential boarding school in Durham serving some of the state’s most academically gifted high school juniors and seniors. The school is part of the UNC System and recently opened a western North Carolina campus in Morganton.

Former classmates pitched the virtues of living in the Triangle, while friends in the office of former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller promoted NCSSM’s academic accomplishments.

Velegol asked about becoming a math or science teacher at NCSSM before learning that there was an opening for an engineering teacher at Riverside High.

“People who are in my situation who have been considering midlife career changes, I really hope they look like at my experience as something that makes them consider making a similar move,” Velegol said. “Education isn’t for everybody, but at the end of the day you’ve got to love working with children.

“You’ve got to be committed to making a difference one kid at a time.”

‘This mission is vitally important’

Velegol has helped oversee a major expansion of Riverside’s engineering program, making it a draw for students across Durham. The program has grown from 90 students, two faculty members and four courses to 450 students, seven faculty members and 11 courses.

Riverside is part of the Project Lead the Way Initiative, a nationwide effort to help guide students into careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.

Riverside has been named a Project Lead The Way Distinguished School for five consecutive years. In 2021, he was recognized as the Project Lead The Way Outstanding Administrator of the Year.

Velegol is now an ambassador for Durham Public Schools and public schools in general.

“I feel like this enterprise, this mission is vitally important to all of us,” Velegol said. “You’d think at age 62 I’d be more jaded and cynical.”

‘Durham is lucky to have him’

As the program has grown, Velegol had to step away from teaching to become an administrator. He says he misses teaching, but he’s now involved in keeping up on all 450 engineering students.

Velegol has regular one-on-one talks with the students, such as 45-minute interviews with every junior and senior about their future plans.

He keeps track of the grades and class schedules for all the engineering students, including reaching out to them to ask if there’s a problem if he sees any drop in performance.

Barboriak, the Riverside parent, is grateful for how Velegol told her son last May that he still hadn’t registered yet for fall 2022 classes. That led Barboriak to realize that the registration system had glitched when they had signed up for classes. They were able to catch the error before all the classes filled up.

Barboriak says Velegol is the extra set of eyes that every parent wishes their kid had.

“The guy probably has a clone of himself,” Barboriak said. “Durham is lucky to have him.”

‘Amazing leader’

Velegol is in constant contact with students, even if it’s over summer break or he’s on vacation, according to Mary Walters, 18, a senior.

“He just really wants to help the students succeed and do the best that they can,” Walters said. “He really takes the time out of his day to be supportive of the students.”

The engineering program has a sense of community that Aiden Messersmith, 18, a junior, credits to Velegol.

“When I think of Mr. Velegol, I think of a kind, caring, great, amazing leader who can help you get through any problem you have,” Messersmith said. “His door is always open.”

Velegol is proud of how 95% of the engineering students will go on to college. Not all the students will go on to engineering programs. Walters said Velegol was nothing but encouraging when she told him of her plans to study veterinary medicine in college.

“He was really supportive and told me that veterinary medicine would be a good fit for my personality,” Walters said.

Thank you

Velegol is one of 18 people nominated when The N&O and The Herald-Sun asked for names of those working in Triangle K-12 schools who make a big impact in the lives of students — perhaps without much public recognition.

Readers gave nominated candidates and narrowed them down to four finalists during the past few weeks of voting in the Education Superhero poll. The last round of voting ended last week.

The finalists, along with Velegol, were Lauren Casteen, an English and social studies teacher at Northern High School in Durham; Aveni Ghosh, the counselor at McDougle Elementary School in Carrboro; and Mary Hunter Martin, the librarian and magnet program coordinator at Partnership Elementary School in Raleigh.

All four finalists deserve to be named the Triangle Education Superhero, Velegol said.

“Dealing with kids on the scale and number that we have to is a huge job,” Velegol said. “You have to have a certain amount of resilience and a love of the kids to make it work.”