2012 Speakers

Congressional Roundtable

Congressman Rubén Hinojosa, a longtime businessman and native of the Rio Grande Valley/ South Texas, was elected to represent Texas' 15th Congressional District in November 1996. The Congressman serves on two House Committees: Education and the Workforce; and Financial Services. He is also a Co-Chair of the Democratic Caucus Education Task Force, and in this capacity will develop a strong education policy in the 107th Congress. Congressman Hinojosa has distinguished himself as an advocate ... Read More!

Dr. Nelsen, who became the eighth president of The University of Texas-Pan American on January 1, 2010, was raised on a small cattle ranch in Montana, just outside of Yellowstone Park, and put himself through college by working as a janitor before classes and by selling fish hooks and western clothing in the evenings. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at The University of Chicag... Read More!

Following graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1978, Adm. Ferguson completed nuclear power training prior to entering the fleet as a surface warfare officer. His afloat assignments include service on board USS South Carolina (CGN 37), USS Fife (DD 991) and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). He commanded the USS Benfold (DDG 65) and Destroyer Squadron 18. In addition to various staff assignments, he served as a Special Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, i... Read More!

Subra Suresh, distinguished engineer and professor, was nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in September 2010. As director of this $7-billion independent federal agency since October 2010, he leads the only government science agency charged with advancing all fields of fundamental science and engineering research and related education. NSF's programs and initiatives keep the United States at the... Read More!

Janet F. Clark is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Marathon Oil Corporation and serves as a member of Marathon's Executive Committee. She joined Marathon in January 2004 after having previously served as senior vice president and chief financial officer for Nuevo Energy from 2001 through 2003. Before joining Nuevo, Ms. Clark worked at Santa Fe Snyder where she assumed the role of executive vice president of Corporate Development and Administration in 1999. Ms. Clark... Read More!

Hector Pineda is a member of Shell Oil Company’s legal department and holds the position of Associate General Counsel – Onshore for Shell’s Upstream Americas organization. As Associate General Counsel for Onshore, Hector has supervisory responsibility for the attorneys and support staff who provide legal services to Shell’s onshore oil and gas business in the Western Hemisphere (primarily in the United States and Canada). In his nearly 18 years as an attorney for Shell, Hector has supported ma... Read More!

Rogelio is a Quality Engineering Specialist for Mass Production, specializing in Electrical Functions Quality for current Tundra and Tacoma models at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. (TMMTX), located on the south side of San Antonio, Texas. In his role, Rogelio is responsible for resolving design and suppler quality problems, qualifying changes for implementation into mass production, and acts as QE contact toward design and suppliers. He also leads in problem solving when no cause can b... Read More!

Educator Day

Thomas K. Sneed is vice president and chief information officer at Marathon Oil Corporation. He began his current assignment in 2003. Since joining Marathon in 1981 as a computer application programmer, Mr. Sneed has progressed through a series of increasingly senior technical and management positions. He served as vice president of Information Technology at Speedway SuperAmerica, a convenience store chain, and led the Information Technology group for Marathon Petroleum Company LP. A native of D... Read More!

1LT David Reyes is a 2009 graduate of West Point, currently serving as the Far West Minority Outreach Officer for the West Point Directorate of Admissions. Outreach Officers visit high schools and junior high schools across the country to provide information and assistance to prospective West Point Candidates. 1LT Reyes’ area of concentration is in the Admissions Far West Region of the United States, which includes California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona... Read More!

HESTEC Presenter

Ms. Gale works for Northrop Grumman Laser Systems as Program Manager in the Advanced Systems Business Area where she is responsible for overseeing key technology development programs. NGC is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of military Electro-Optical targeting systems. Ms. Gale joined NGC in 2005, after graduating from the University of West Florida with a BS degree in Engineering Physics. During her career at NGC she has worked as an engineer supporting the man-portable business u... Read More!

Armando Arismendi is responsible for the development and delivery of custom supercomputers for the U.S. Government. He leads a multi-divisional team of researchers, software and hardware developers, and testers as well as manufacturing in order accomplish the delivery of these application-specific supercomputers. Armando was previously the Research Division CIO responsible for the worldwide Research infrastructure as well as infrastructure research in the areas of Cloud Computing and worldwide ... Read More!

Armando Garza is the Plant Manager of McAllen Facility for the Coca Cola Company. He joined Coca Cola on April 2010 after previously serving various roles with Johnson Controls Inc. from 1998 through 2010. Armando began his career as an Associate Engineering in Johnson Controls Inc. in their Reynosa operations in January 1998 and took on various expanding roles within Engineering and Manufacturing. His continuing education at UTPA allowed Armando to continually expand his capability and ar... Read More!

Student Leadership Day

Gavino Ramos is the Sr Director of Communications for Time Warner Cable Texas. Under his leadership, many Communications and public affairs programs have allowed Time Warner Cable to successfully compete in the telecommunications arena. Responsible for public relations activities in South Texas and along the newly created Border Region, his duties also include media relations, community relations, and employee communications, Mr. Ramos manages a team that applies proven strategies for developin... Read More!

Chuck Villarreal is the director of Mechanical Engineering. Prior to him taking this position in July 2011, Chuck was the director of production operations for the Dallas heritage tactical missiles line of business. Chuck has a diverse range of technical experience in mechanical design, analysis, and production coupled with a leadership record of accomplishment in areas ranging from mechanical and test engineering functional management, ground combat vehicle design/integration, ground support ... Read More!

Latina Day

Melissa is the Communications Director for Time Warner Cable in San Antonio where she develops and implements public relations plans to promote the company’s products, services and community initiatives. Melissa has been with the company since 2006 and her favorite Time Warner Cable technology is the TWC TV app. In her 11 years in public relations, Melissa has conducted public relations work for several notable clients including the San Antonio Express-News, San Fernando Cathedral, the Alamed... Read More!

Provide leadership, obtain approval, and assure project delivery within policy and owner project requirements for the two Rio Grande Valley University System Campuses, The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College and University of Texas Pan American Capital Improvement Program covering a wide variety of projects to include research, teaching, health care, sports, and infrastructure. Provide technical authority and program oversight over Project and Resident Construction Ma... Read More!

Samantha was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. She joined ExxonMobil Global Services Company in June of 2009 after being the first female to graduate with a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas – Pan American. Samantha currently works for ExxonMobil’s Global Services Company in Software Services as the team lead for the Houston License Management team, managing software licenses. In her three years with ExxonMobil she has held three different assignments. She find... Read More!

Yvonne Trejo is currently a Reservoir Engineer for Marathon Oil Company’s Eagle Ford asset in South Texas. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston in Houston, TX. She joined Marathon in the summer of 2004 as a production engineer intern in Oklahoma City, OK. In the summer of 2005, she returned to Marathon for a second internship in Kenai, Alaska and continued as a production engineer intern. Upon completion of her degree in 2006, she joi... Read More!

Science Symposium

Seth is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, in Mountain View, California. He has an undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University, and a doctorate in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology. For much of his career, Seth conducted radio astronomy research on galaxies, and has published approximately sixty papers in professional journals. He has written more than four hundred popular magazine, newspaper and Web articles on various topics in astronomy, techno... Read More!

Robotics Day

Jon Gary Herrera is the Vice President of Communications for Time Warner Cable Texas. Under his strategic leadership, his aggressive communications and public affairs programs have allowed Time Warner Cable to successfully compete in the telecommunications arena. Responsible for all public relations activities which include media relations, community relations, and employee communications, Mr. Herrera manages a team that applies proven strategies across Texas for developing and executing the ov... Read More!