Margarita Colmenares: Mexican American Environmental Engineer

Margarita Colmenares was born in 1957 in Sacramento, California. Her father worked a migrant worker, and later had jobs at a cannery and a warehouse. Her mother worked at a department store. Colmenares worked delivering newspapers and selling products to help her family. She loved to read and excelled in school. She took college classes during her senior year of high school. After graduating from high school, she attended California State University. She started as a business major, but later changed her major to engineering. She worked as a student assistant for the Department of Water Resources, where she studied the effects of earthquakes on aqueducts.

Colmenares transferred to a community college, where she applied for and received a scholarship from General Electric. The scholarship paid for most of her tuition. Colmenares later applied to transfer to Stanford University and was accepted there. She continued to give back to the community by tutoring children and teaching Mexican folk dance classes. In 1981, she graduated with a degree in civil engineering. She started a chapter of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers in San Francisco. The organization mentors Hispanic students interested in engineering, and offers scholarships.

Colmenares got a job with Chevron Corporation, where she worked on many important projects. For example, she worked on a project to replace underground tanks to prevent leakage of harmful chemicals into the environment. In 1985, she was named environmental compliance specialist. She worked on projects to clean soil and groundwater of pollutants. She also worked to reduce emissions of air pollutants. But she was concerned that not enough Latino students were studying engineering. She made a deal with Chevron that allowed her to work full-time at the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers for two years.

In 1991, Colmenares was named a White House fellow. She was the first Hispanic engineer to receive this honor. She worked with NASA, the United States Department of Education, and other agencies to improve math and science education.

In 1993, Colmenares began work as director of corporate liasons for the Department of Education. She was still in that position in 1997, and I have been unable to find any more recent information about her.