The old Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team used to have a saying. They’d dust it off and wave it nearly every fall, after almost, but not quite, winning the World Series: “Wait until next year.” Well, the Georgia Institute of Technology is a long way from Brooklyn, but this year, the hard-working, dedicated staff at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) can understand the Dodgers’ angst.

BME was nosed out last week in the annual College of Engineering competition for the Buzz Award for Staff Appreciation. So, BME had to hand the trophy off to this year’s champion, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautical Engineering (AE).

Every year, the staffs of Tech’s various schools and departments compete for recognition, but the means of competition changes each time. Last year, BME took home the trophy in a t-shirt contest, with a winning design from student Marisa Casola, a Petit Scholar in Melissa Kemp’s lab (and a layout editor for the Pioneer). Her artistic rendering of a profiled head with a multitude of diverse ideas popping out of it, surrounded the winning message, “Great Minds Don’t Think Alike,” reflecting the interdisciplinary approach that has become inextricably linked with Tech’s bio community philosophy.

But this year, the competition was in poster design, and AE won the trophy with a design that featured a bunch of staff photos overlaid with a shot of the AE building, and the message: “They are our bricks. They are our mortar. They are the key to our success.”

“The decision was based on a vote of the associate deans and myself,” explains Gary May, dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering. “AE stood out because of the collage of all the staff images integrated with the image of the AE building. It was very impressive and must have taken quite a bit of time to complete.”

Just like Lord Stanley’s Cup, which goes to the National Hockey League champion, or the World Series Trophy in baseball, the glass Buzz Trophy exchanges hands when a new champion is crowned. BME’s victory last year ended a two-year run by the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

“No one should be disappointed – there can only be one winner,” May assures. “All of the posters were good, and I am grateful to all who participated. We look forward to another spirited competition next year.”