Once the youngest college student in China at age 12, Ya-Qin Zhang now advises the richest man in the world about key research and development projects. Zhang, Microsoft corporate vice president who leads R&D efforts in China, was one of four Washington engineers honored as 2006 Asian American Engineer of the Year at an awards ceremony over the weekend.

These old photographs from the presentation show just how far Zhang has come.

The other local award winners are Charles A. Marquez, commanding officer in the U.S. Navy, a nuclear power engineer who commands the USS Columbus submarine; Yong Wang, fuel cell technology expert and laboratory fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Process Science & Engineering Division; and Susan X. Ying, director of mathematics and computing technology at Boeing's Phantom Works.

Presented by the Chinese Institute of Engineers, USA, the awards recognize Asian Americans for outstanding achievements in the field.