MILL CREEK, JUNE 8: A summer program coordinated by Boeing and NASA, challenging high school students to engineer a human space flight to the planet Mars, has propelled Riley Huber to Georgia Institute of Technology as he prepares to graduate from Jackson High School in Mill Creek.
A year ago, during the summer before his senior year, Huber applied to an introductory aerospace course conducted by The University of Washington and The Museum of Flight, at Boeing Field.
Huber recalls, “It started with an introductory aerospace course, and then if you get a good enough grade, you get invited to a five-day residency where you stay at the UW dorms and do things in the Museum of Flight, and it’s where you’re designing a Mars mission for the supposed first human Mars mission. So you decide a couple parameters, and then you’re put into teams that kind of explore (the mission).”
Huber was selected to be the systems manager for the student project which was supervised by engineering professionals as part of the curriculum. Explaining his role on the team, he says, “It was really fun because our job was taking everyone else’s information and putting it into a cohesive mission plan.”
But then the realities of over-seeing a large engineering team emerged in an unexpected way for the then high school junior. “And it was really fun”, Huber admits sarcastically, “because I quickly learned that people don’t give you everything you ask for the first time.”
Addressing the team’s communication gap, Huber says, “so it was, it was a complex thing to just kind of like, figure out how to navigate getting information from people that we needed to do our jobs and doing it in a way that’s not gonna get anyone mad at each other.”
Asked what he learned either about himself or about working in groups, Huber responds, “I learned that leading is complicated. And again, that getting information out of people can be complicated, but I learned that I loved my job. I learned that I loved the engineering part where you are pulling your hair out going, ‘‘I don’t understand this. I need to figure this out’.”
Huber continues, “That was super fun for me and working in a team. I’ve always known I loved being a collaborator, but it really drove home the point of, I love working with a group of people to achieve a common goal.”
Huber was bringing his future into sharper focus. For the rising senior’s final year at Jackson, it was now time to select a university with the right degree program.
“One of the reasons I chose mechanical engineering is because I’m naturally someone who just loves to do anything”, Huber radiates. “I could build cars, build planes, robotics. I could do anything with it, go into any field, and find success there.”
Huber narrowed it down to two schools, saying “It really came down to Purdue and Georgia Tech. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to get into Georgia Tech because it was super competitive for out-of-state students, and so I thought I loved Purdue. I love the atmosphere at that school.”
He was admitted to Purdue first and was waiting on notification from Georgia Tech. “And so when I got in (to Georgia Tech) over spring break,” Huber says enthusiastically, “I was like, I have to go see Georgia Tech.“
“So I went and the atmosphere of Atlanta and the atmosphere of the school just seemed far more appealing,” the lifelong Mill Creek resident says about his first ever visit to Atlanta. “I love that city atmosphere.”
For Georgia Tech, the out-of-state student admission rate is 9%, so Huber is in rare company as starts the 2,648 mile journey to be an incoming Yellow Jacket.
Huber describes his dream job as engineering a Formula One race car, noting the precision and attention to detail demanded for success, “As a car engineer, it’s like they’re chasing milliseconds of time, every time with new innovations, and that would just be really cool. Make something that wins a world championship, that would be, that’d be a dream come true.”
The hard science of engineering is not the only passion Huber enjoys. He’s performed in several plays and musicals during his four years at Jackson High School, including leading roles in “Little Women” and “Chicago”.
Jackson HS Principal, Sechen Tower, first remembers seeing Huber on the school stage, saying “I thought, well, that guy’s really good. And as I got to know him through the years, I started to be amazed at how many different things he’s really good at.”
Tower continues, “It’s amazing to me that Riley is so talented and passionate about so many different areas. There seem to be no boundaries between one area of knowledge and another. And it feels like his knowledge of math, informs his ability in music. His ability in music informs his performances with drama. He’s got one of those rare abilities to bring things from one area into a different area. I imagine that’s going to be a huge asset as an engineer.”
Huber lauds his Timberwolves teachers and counselors as well as his parents and siblings—a twin brother and a college-age sister. For the Jackson faculty—including Theater Arts teacher Brian Marshall, who directed Huber on the stage and counselor Alfred Cain who consulted him since 9th grade–Huber says, “I am someone who’s very self-motivated but also someone who’s really eager to do everything. And I kind of need that. I will throw a hundred percent of my effort into something, but someone’s got to help me rein it in a little bit sometimes, and all of these people at this school have really helped me figure out how to navigate that without, you know, burning out. You know, doing too much or doing too little.”
Huber and his fellow Jackson HS Timberwolf seniors officially graduate June 13. Then his next engineering project will be matriculating at Georgia Tech.
Congratulations to Huber and all the 2026 graduating seniors around Snohomish County.
The next two weeks will be a very busy time for downtown Everett and Angel of the Winds Arena; 13 high school graduation ceremonies and two college commencements are scheduled.
Monday, June 8 – Snohomish, 4 pm & Glacier Peak, 7:30 pm.
Tuesday, June 9 – Lake Stevens, 6:30 pm.
Wednesday, June 10 – Arlington, 5 pm.
Thursday, June 11 – Mount Vernon, 7 pm.
Friday, June 12 – Kamiak, 4 pm & Mariner, 8 pm.
Saturday, June 13 – Jackson, 11 am; Everett, 3 pm & Cascade, 7 pm.
Sunday, June 14 – Everett Community College, 4 pm.
Monday, June 15 – Monroe, 5 pm.
Tuesday, June 16 – Shorecrest, 7 pm.
Wednesday, June 17 – Shorewood, 7 pm.
Thursday, June 18 – Edmonds College, 6 pm.