Teens net computers after chance meeting

It's not often that participating in an extracurricular project leads to getting a home computer.

But that's exactly what happened for four Streamwood High School students who participated in the Motorized Toy Car Project at the Society of Automotive Engineers convention last October.

The four students, Fidel Guzman, Sergio Gutierrez, Omar Diaz and Marco Salas, all sophomore physical science students from Streamwood, recently received Dell desktop computers thanks to the generosity of David Bortz of Tribco Inc. in Cleveland, who also attended the convention. All were more than surprised by Bortz's generosity.

"We were in the lobby area of the convention (at the Stephens Center in Rosemont) and there are literally hundreds of engineers who pass by," said Greg Reiva, one of the Streamwood faculty sponsors of the project. "He (Bortz) was very interested in what they were doing and at one point he began talking about how he struggled through school."

One thing led to another and Bortz discovered that some of the Streamwood students didn't have home computers. He was flabbergasted by the fact and vowed to purchase some.

Because a total of eight students went to the SAE convention, the school held a lottery to determine who would benefit from the free computers. Of the winners, only Gutierrez had previously owned a personal computer. For the other three, it was their first machine.

"They (the students) were just stunned that someone would be so generous to them," Reiva said.