Thacker and his wife, Mary, are CCWF's main benefactors, but mining firms and government entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority also contribute, as do E&C firms and groups. "Barry did a great job of making engineering and education seem cool with the kids, and the payoff is showing," says S. Craig Smith, a Hayward Baker project manager in Knoxville. He worked with Thacker on projects while at contractor Phillips & Jordan.

CCWF's successes have raised its profile, and Thacker has been recognized by the industry and national media. Nominated by ASFE, the geotechnical engineers' group, and the American Society of Civil Engineers, he was awarded the prestigious Hoover Medal in 2003. Engineering societies jointly award it for "outstanding extra-career services by engineers to humanity." Even with his accolades, Thacker can be an industry gadfly, such as challenging a report by AECOM on the causes of a 2008 coal-ash spill at a TVA powerplant in Kingston, Tenn.

Thacker ventured into a new educational realm earlier this year by having his firm sponsor Briceville Elementary in Engineering Better Readers (EBR), a new venture of the Engineers' Leadership Foundation, a not-for-profit group focused on honing engineers' leadership skills.

The incentive-based program aims to boost reading scores in low-performing schools by awarding prizes to students who read more books. Thacker's firm donated $3,000 toward the prizes and volunteered staffers and CCWF scholars as student mentors. While not linking results totally to EBR, "reading scores across the board were very, very up," says teacher and program coordinator Michelle LaDue.

Kippie Leinart, once skeptical of CCWF's motives, now thinks differently. "I tell other kids to stay with these people," she says. Adds her son, "Barry balances his firm and voluntarily aids an entire community. He doesn't even seem to mind the scale of it all. It just seems like his day job."