Spotlight: Chess Impacting STEM Careers with Bruce Kovalsky

It’s easy to see that Bruce Kovalsky has had a successful career in the STEM industry from even a quick glance at his resume. He’s been a senior manager and senior engineering specialist at places like Boeing and IBM and has now been taking a well earned sabbatical since July 2022. 

His successful chess career is equally apparent. Bruce became a National Chess Master in 1984. He shared that he learned chess from his grandfather when he was five or six years old and started playing in chess tournaments in middle school with his older brother. In the beginning that sibling rivalry motivated Bruce to keep studying but even after he surpassed his brother he fell in love with the game and continued to play.

In his recent interview with Chess4Life founder Elliott Neff, Bruce highlighted some key parallels he saw between his STEM career and playing chess, and discussed why it has been so important to him to volunteer hours of his time to help others learn the game. Check out the full story here!