In the coming series, we will be talking to Latinos from the engineering, science, and technology worlds, telling their stories of how they or their family arrived to the United States, and their path into college, and professional engineering.
The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) was founded by Rodrigo Garcia, a butcher’s son and a first-generation Mexican-American, who at the time of SHPE’s founding in 1974, was working as a transit engineer and project manager for the city of Los Angeles.
SHPE was founded to fill a void, according to Rodrigo. The 1960s and 70s were a time of “cultural revolution. In the 1970s we felt the time [to start a Hispanic engineering community] was right. There was a sense in the community about Latinos becoming more influential, getting more active.” For Rodrigo and his Latino civil engineering colleagues at City Hall, they saw a few groups, like the National Society of Professional Engineers, which promoted the industry and not any one social group, and others, like Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES), which promoted only the interests of Mexican Americans and not necessarily other Latino Americans.
What Rodrigo and his colleagues wanted was a group that promoted the interests of all Spanish speaking groups across all of engineering. To get the ball rolling, they did what any scrappy start-up today might do and found a roster of all of the professional engineers in California, picked out the ones with Spanish sounding surnames and cold mailed them, pitching their proposal.
From that list of about 500, 50 agreed to join. Despite the 10 percent that joined, Rodrigo said he was a bit surprised that 90 percent rejected them. “Some felt like they’d already made it on their own. They didn’t need us,” he recalled. Undaunted, SHPE continued its journey.
Within that group of 50, the seeds had been planted. Members, who all started in California (with one notable exception representing Spain), then went forth and prospered, taking jobs in other states and cities. Soon chapters sprung up in Texas, Chicago, and New York. SHPE moved into universities as well, establishing chapters across California.
They continued to face scepticism, however, as existing university groups like Latinos in Science and Engineering questioned the need for a group so similar to theirs. But it’s here that the vision and scope of SHPE proved successful.
There’s an old adage that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” For SHPE, the vision has always been about going as far as possible, growing as large as possible, getting as many children, teens and adults into science and engineering as possible. As Rodrigo pointed out, “Our flexibility was the key to success. We weren’t going to hold leadership. Any one of us could lead.” SHPE has never been about representing one group or one industry, it’s about uniting all similar groups, having members from Mexico, but also from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and so on from across the Spanish-speaking world and across the United States.
For Rodrigo, ever the engineer, the vision is in the numbers. “The Hispanic population of the U.S. is about 18 percent. Our representation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is only about seven percent. So we have to look at ways to double that, at least.” To do that, SHPE believes it has to encourage children (with the help of their families), from kindergarten onward to pursue STEM. They’re expanding their offerings and roles in colleges and universities, hoping to attract young people that may have an interest in STEM. They already have one of the country’s largest memberships both at the university and professional levels but despite that still see those levels as largely untapped resources.
For members, the common refrain is that SHPE is “una famila.” Over 40,000 university members have already gone through SHPE’s pipeline, and many have made lifelong connections within SHPE. Many of them also are able to leverage the network to get internships and jobs. Once in the field, they can continue to rely on SHPE for networking and professional development. Their annual National Convention, an event that sees thousands come together from across the nation (this year’s is in Phoenix, AZ), is a time for members to reunite and share skills, opportunities, memories, and shared successes.
In order to grow, SHPE is looking to expand its presence at the college level through their 50k Initiative (https://50kcoalition.org/), a project that sees SHPE joining with other non-Latino minority engineering advocacy groups to build a pool of 50,000 engineers from diverse backgrounds. In doing this, SHPE and others hope to show young people the value and dignity of a career in STEM. The growth over the past 45 years has been steady and with a professional staff in place, the future is bright and potential enormous.
To learn more about SHPE, visit their website at https://shpe.org/ or checkout their Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/shpenational/ or Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shpenational/