The Dale Yasukawa Scholarship Fund, maintained by OPAF and The First Clinics, received a $500 donation from Ability Prosthetics & Orthotics of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and its president and COO, Jeff Brandt, CPO.
The scholarship’s intent is to encourage those students to attend their local or regional American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists (Academy) chapter meeting or a national meeting to promote education and involvement in the profession.
Yasukawa, CP, had been a Research Institute of Chicago (RIC) colleague and a mentor to Brandt.
“I was a scholarship recipient while at Northwestern and knew and worked alongside Dale at RIC…,” Brandt said. “So when this scholarship in his name was started, I made the commitment to him and to the students that I would always fund it. It gives me great pleasure to give back.”
Yasukawa died on November 22, 2001, at age 43. He served as director of prosthetics in RIC’s department of prosthetic-orthotic clinical services. He was involved in the Midwest Chapter of the Academy for more than seven years, completing his service as immediate past president the year he died.
The 2011 recipient of the Dale Yasukawa Scholarship is Adam McFarlane, an orthotic resident with Clark & Associates, Waterloo.
The Dale Yasukawa Scholarship is awarded annually to a Northwestern student pursuing orthotics and/or prosthetics as a career.
