This year, the Ashland Business Association [ABA] awards Jerry Judge and Tanush Garg each a $1,500 ABA Scholarship Award.

The business association’s Scholarship Committee selects high school seniors residing within Ashland, who best demonstrate good work ethics, motivation, creativity and business/community interests.

Jerry Judge is pursuing Managerial Economics at UMASS Amherst.  In his application, he noted his leadership skills as the Captain for the Ashland High School (AHS) Baseball team. 

His accomplishments include being named Rookie of the Year as a Freshman joining the Varsity Baseball Team. Judge was also a member of the High School Football team, earning the Outstanding Sportsmanship and Dedication award because of his contribution as a team member, while overcoming an injury prohibiting his ability to play. 

Judge possesses entrepreneurial skills as a participant in The Edge program and AHS Entrepreneurial Club. At The Edge, Judge attended monthly seminars learning from different guest speakers sharing experiences in careers and personal experiences to build character and develop life skills. At AHS LaunchX Social Entrepreneurial Club, Judge pitched his business idea for a E-Sport Recruitment Software earning the Venture Capital Investment Award. 

“Winning the Venture Capital Investment Award was super meaningful to me because I always loved business. Watching Shark Tank, I imagine myself as an entrepreneur.  Winning this award was great encouragement! “said Judge. 

Additionally, Judge pitched an idea to launch a loyalty program for the ABA to further support businesses in our community.

Judge also contributes in his family by taking care of his younger siblings while his parents work, picking up shifts at the local grocery store, and serving in his family’s local parish assisting in the more intricate holiday masses in addition to the weekly services. 

Tanush Garg

Tanush Garg is Pursuing Economics/Computer Science at Brown University. In his application, Garg noted his leadership skills as the Vice President of Student Council, Co-President and Co-Founder of the Stock Market Club, and Co-President of LaunchX Social Entrepreneurial Club at Ashland High School.

Garg impressively earned 1st Place out of 1,200 plus entries for a Stock Market Game, proving his thorough understanding of the Stock Market and his ability to build a well-rounded portfolio with the ability to earn high-profile investments. Also showing Garg’s knowledge of the Stock Market, Garg earned 1st Place at Michigan Tech’s Husky Investment Tournament. Showcasing entrepreneurial skills, Garg also earned 3rd Place in a BIG Idea Entrepreneurship contest, solidifying Garg and his team’s start up was worthy of an investment.

Garg also interned with Constant Therapy Health, a start-up aimed at digitizing care for patients with neurological conditions. “My grandma’s experience with dementia motivated me to intern here, “ said Garg, “Crafting patient-centered content through coding and creating compelling videos, I was excited to be part of creating a product that could improve outcomes for people like my grandmother and learned about how my skills can be used to solve real-world issues.” 

In addition to participating in these activities, Garg performed research for Professors at MIT and Harvard. With Professor Ellison at MIT, Garg collected data for research papers, analyzed data, built data tables, collaborated with MIT researchers, and helped aid writing an AP Statistics Textbook. Professor Dell at Harvard had Garg help train a language model to categorize articles between economic, political, & other news to make a global historical understanding of the world more widely accessible, learning about how past news can influence our decisions and thinking processes today.  

“Year after year, I am impressed with the accomplishments of the applicants and thoroughly enjoy reading their ideas on how to change the Ashland community for the better. The applicants are diverse in their academic achievements, extracurricular activities and accolades yet those who are chosen seem to have personal drive as a common denominator. It is a pleasure getting to meet them on senior award day and shake their hand. In their short time as young adults they have already contributed to the community of Ashland in a positive way. If it wasn’t for the generous donations of the Ashland Business community, we wouldn’t be able to continue this program and so we are grateful to the Ashland businesses who’ve donated and continue to make this scholarship program a success” said Chrissy Reynolds, ABA Scholarship Committee Chair and owner of Annemarie’s Dance Centre. 

These two scholarships were appointed by the ABA Scholarship committee comprised of members, Chrissy Reynolds of Annemarie’s Dance Centre, Paul Netopski of Critical Prism Defense LLC, Ron Stone of Law Office of Ronald M Stone, Peter Chisholm of Expedia Cruises, and Bill Gath of Realty Executives.