budget and personnel issues. “I like what we do” at JSC, she said in a recent magazine interview. “I am com- mitted to space flight, human
Dr. Ellen Ochoa
exploration, learning
how to do more and more. I like the fact that it is much bigger than myself, important to my country and to the world. I like being able to contribute in this way.”
Flying in a Different Atmosphere
Michael Montelongo, a senior project manager with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Atlanta before being selected by President George W. Bush to be as- sistant secretary of the Air Force, has had a varied career.
A 1977 West Point graduate and a 1992 graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, Montelongo also holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Busi- ness School. An Army Ranger and Air Defense Artillery officer who rose to special assistant to the commander of the United States Southern Command and special assistant to the Army chief of staff, Montelongo later became a congressional fellow in the U.S. Senate. He joined BellSouth in 1996 before his stint at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and after his appointment as Air Force budget chief, had charge of $124 billion.
Today he is senior vice president and chief administrative officer of Sodexo, Inc., an $8 billion a year, 120,000 person enterprise based in Gaithersburg, Md. Montelongo is a mem- ber of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves
on the board of directors of Denny’s Corporation and on NASA’s advisory council.
In 2008, HE&IT named Montelongo one of the “50 Most Important Hispanics in Technology and Business”.
Linda Garcia Cubero was a member of the very first class of wom- en to graduate from the Air Force Academy in 1980, making her the very first Hispanic wom- an to graduate from any of the U.S. service academies, after Presi- dent Gerald Ford signed legislation permitting women to be enrolled in the military’s premier officer training institutions. Capt. Cubero thus began a seven-year hitch, working as a command briefer and on national task forces at the Pentagon. One of her happiest tasks, as special assistant to the deputy secre- tary of defense, was to supervise the development of a commemorative U.S. stamp to honor Hispanics who fought in America’s defense.
Now president of Falcon Cash Inves- tors, LLC, Cubero, who holds a Master of Science degree in systems engineer- ing from Virginia Polytechnic and State University, has also held civilian posts as IT client director at Hewlett-Packard, a director of EDS, and director of global supplier relationships at Case Corpora- tion.
Still More Change to Come
As stated earlier, Hispanic immigration and birth rates have caused dramatic shifts in the American population. But those are not the only driv- ers. A look at the U.S. Center for Education Statistics’ “Con- dition of Education” report reveals how the equally dramatic falloff of birth rates among white Americans also is changing the picture.
Michael Montelongo 50 HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | 2010
• In the Northeast, where white children made up 81.4 percent of the public school students in 1972, Hispanic students rep- resented
only 5.5 percent of the total, while black Americans added another 12.4 percent. The Center’s 2007 survey, the most recent figures, show that white students had fallen to 64.0 percent of the public school population, while Hispanics’ share grew to 14.9 per- cent, slightly outpacing African Americans’ 13.5 percent share.
Capt. Linda Garcia Cubero
• In the Midwest, white children made up 87.5 percent of the public school enrollment in 1972, but their share had fallen to 72.0 percent by 2007. Hispanic children’s enrollment had grown to
8.5 percent, while African Americans’, 10.6 percent in 1972, rose to 13.2 percent.
• In the South, white schoolchildren’s share of the student population was 69.7 percent in 1972, but that fell to 51.1 percent while African American students’ share remained stable. It was 24.8 percent in 1972, and only declined by five-tenths of a percent by 2007. Hispanics, meanwhile, saw their share of the student population rise from 5.0 percent to 18.8 percent.
• The biggest change came in the Western states. White Americans’ share of the public school enrollment fell pre- cipitously, from 72.8 percent in 1972 to 43.4 percent in 2007. African Americans’ share fell also, from 6.4 percent in 1972 to 5.0 percent in 2007, while Hispanic children’s share rose just as dramati- cally, from 15.3 percent in 1972 to 39.1 percent of the public school enrollment in 2007.
That makes it clear where tomorrow’s scientific and engineering enrollment must come from, especially in the West- ern states, which are home to the largest percentages of Hispanic students. The children growing up in those states, and in indeed across the United States, are growing up in a very different society than that which greeted a young im- migrant named Albert Baez, or in which the young American Richard Tapia and the young diplomat’s son Mario Molina began their educations.
www.hispanicengineer.com
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