Attendees enjoy some of the 25,000 pounds of crawfish served at the Off Shore Technology Conference Kick-Off crawfish boil May 4 in Lynn Eusan Park. | Courtesy of Ariel Daudet
The Cullen College of Engineering hosted its 26th annual Offshore Industry Crawfish Boil from 1 to 5 p.m. May 4 at Lynn Eusan Park. Proceeds from this event benefit engineering scholarships and academic programs for engineering at UH and surrounding colleges. The event also served as a kickoff for the Offshore Technology Conference that will be hosted this week at Reliant Stadium.
The first crawfish boil was started by UH alumnus Benton Baugh to raise scholarship funds for the College of Engineering. He later asked Diane Ashen of Ashen & Associates to team up with him, and due to her many contacts, the event has grown annually. This year scholarship funds exceeded $1.5 million.
“Overall, it was a smooth execution of a major event for the most worthy of causes — raising financial assistance for future engineers,” Ashen said. “The average age of the oil field professionals is 60, so we need these kids to come into our industry.”
The entire event was organized by seven people, supplemented by hundreds of high school and college volunteers the day of the event. Accounting and finance major Joshua Ferguson was one of the volunteers who helped set up.
“Being able to see the finished product ready for all the visitors was pretty cool,” Ferguson said. “And of course, being able to eat all the crawfish I wanted wasn’t bad either.”
This year’s event was the largest yet, with 12,000 people served and 25,000 pounds of crawfish. The ticket price covered all activities including live music and dancing, a moonwalk, raffles, balloon animals, and unlimited crawfish.
“I really enjoyed getting to hang out with my engineering friends,” mechanical engineering junior Hannah Lau said. “The crawfish was definitely the best part, but it was also great to get a break from the stress of finals.”
Students also enjoyed the chance to spend time with others in their field.
“Besides being an event that you can enjoy all the food you want at, it is also an opportunity to network with many alumni and people in the fields that a lot of our students on campus want to go into,” Ferguson said. “More students really should attend the event for some potential professional development opportunities.”
