Ep 335: A Fireside Chat With SHPE CEO Suzanna Valdez Wolfe on the State of Latinas in Engineering

I believe that we have a collective impact that when we work together and our work builds on including more and ensuring more that we provide a supportive STEM landscape for everyone. Welcome to Diverse, a Society of Women Engineers podcast. Sweet Gives Women Engineers a unique place and voice within the engineering community. On Diverse, we highlight incredible women in STEM and discover who they are at home, at work, and everywhere in between. You can find all of our episodes wherever you stream your favorite podcast. Hello, I'm Karen Horting, Executive Director and CEO of the Society of Women Engineers. Welcome to Diverse, a Sweet Podcast. Sweet is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and we have a very special guest to mark the occasion. I'm here with Susana Valdes-Wolf, CEO of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, also known as SHIP. Sweet and SHIP, as well as our other joint member partner organizations, work together year-round to create more inclusive STEM environments and bolster the pipeline of engineers who are shaping our world. Susana, I am so excited to speak with you today about the experiences of Latina's in STEM, as well as your own leadership journey. So welcome to Diverse. Thank you, Karen. Thank you so much for having me. I'm grateful for your mentorship and partnership, and so happy to be here. Thank you. Wonderful. So for our listeners who may not be familiar with SHIP, can you introduce SHIP and yourself and share what drew you to this work and to leading SHIP? Of course. Thank you. So, as you mentioned, I'm CEO of SHIP. I have served in this role now for 19 months, and so more or less a newbie. What drew me to SHIP was its incredible mission and the impact that it's had over the last 50 years. What I feel is an incredible accomplishment is that this organization is not only surviving, it's thriving, and we're now celebrating our 51st year. And for those of you that don't know what the mission of SHIP is, was created to empower the Hispanic community and to support the Hispanic community through STEM awareness, access, support and development. And what's unique about SHIP, I believe, is that it has done it through fostering a familiar culture. And so whether it's through education, professional growth, leadership opportunities, development, all through the STEM fields, this was a mission that drew me to this work, and also with respect to the people that I've met now in the last 19 months, meaning the members hearing their stories. It's an incredible mission and people that are keeping me inspired about our mission. I love how aligned our organizations are and how we approach this work, because it's sweet we talk about the community. It's all about the community, and it's how do we get more young women into the engineering pipeline, and then once they're in their pipeline, how do we help them be successful, how do we move them into leadership roles so that they can really start to influence the profession. And I think that community for us, that familiar environment and feeling is just so important. And I love how we approach that work in such a similar way. Absolutely. Can you tell us a little about your journey before coming to SHIP? Of course. So I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, and so for those of you that are not familiar, El Paso Texas is on the US/Mexico border. And so being born and raised there really shaped my commitment and my recognition about both two things, family and service to your community. So I started my career in Washington, DC. I worked in the House of Representatives, the US Senate, the White House for five years, and Department of Ed. I was Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of Labor. And so through that experience and that calling to public service, it really shaped what I feel is my duty, my responsibility to help others, to help your community. I've lived in Washington, DC. I've lived in LA, New York, and now Miami. And so my involvement and engagement in the nonprofit community has been some of the most rewarding work that I've done because whether you're in public service or you're in nonprofit work, there's a guided belief in serving others and paying it forward. So that you can make opportunities possible for the people that are beside you that are behind you and you can pull everyone forward. I love that. I tell people all the time when they say, you know, what's kept you it's sweet for so long? And I say, it's really that idea of working for a mission-driven organization. Absolutely. I spend time in industry and I always say, getting up and helping move a mission forward gets me excited. Getting up and working to increase shareholder return does not. That's not to criticize the corporate world. But for me, once I started working at SWE and seeing the mission in action, I was like, I can't imagine doing anything else. And it sounds like you have a very similar mindset. Absolutely. And what is a privilege and a joy is that everyone at SHIP both the board, the members, the staff is that everyone's driven by that passion for mission. And when you get to work every day and just have that community around you, it really is a privilege to do the work that we do. It's like, it's not even work, right? It's really being passionate about the mission and serving others. That's what I say. It's just for me, it's been an honor to be able to be involved in this kind of work and see the positive impact we're having on women, men, all cultures, just this profession that right now so desperately needs committed, passionate people if we're going to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. So I think that's a good transition as we think about Latinas in STEM right now. What are the biggest opportunities and what are the challenges? Sure. So I think there's several opportunities and challenges. And again, I think that the challenges lead, right, sometimes to the opportunities. And those challenges and opportunities are about what is our collective impact, right? Like there's two things that we're unaware of is that as Latinas and as women, we can feel very isolated when we get into these careers when we start studying STEM, right? There's not a lot of people that look like us and maybe understand our cultural journey to getting here. So as I talk about culture, it's like navigating cultural expectations, especially for Latinas in STEM right now. If you are first generation Latina, I recall personally when I was moving from El Paso to Washington, DC and the conversation that my family had not necessarily my parents, but I had, you know, I grew up with 50 cousins. My mom was one of 13 and it was the conversation about hold on. So son is moving from El Paso to Washington, DC to work on Capitol Hill. Like that was a conversation about my leaving my family, my community to go so far and to be quote unquote by myself. And so I have those conversations with first generation Latinas, even now, whether they're undergrads, whether now on their professional journey. It's that cultural expectations that sometimes our families have of us about staying home and staying close. I'm sure there were conversations among those cousins of why are they letting her go? Exactly. Exactly. And so I am so blessed and grateful to have had the support of my parents and say, if this is something that you want to pursue, we will support you in doing that. You have our love and support and it was hard. I was homesick. It's hard to be so far away from home for the first time in your life that challenge then can lead to our opportunity, right? That when you feel like you're out of place or you feel that you're alone, you can overcome that isolation by building community. And that's what I feel the opportunity is for each of us every day. And what the core of ship and we provide is that we provide support resources, mentorship, right? So that when you create this network, when you create the support, no matter where you are, you have a support system that helps you going. I - I always say, reach out, you're not alone. I'm grateful that that ship is one of many organizations that's here to support you, but people are waiting to hear from you. They want you to ask for help because they're just ready to help you. I've lived a lifetime of that. I want to ensure that any woman, Latina, Latino, is like just reach out because someone's waiting to help you. - I couldn't agree more. I tell that to our members all the time. You deserve to be here. You belong here. And sweet ship, Nesby, Aces, SACE, out to innovate. We're all here, whatever community or communities that you identify with and feel that it is your familiar, that we're here. We're here to help and you just need to reach out. And so if someone's questioning that you belong, don't listen to that. That's just noise. And you absolutely belong here. I mean, we still hear from our students who say, I've got a professor that says, I'm just here to find a husband. And that always makes me laugh in the way that of, if you were going to university just to find a husband, I think you'd pick something a little less challenging than all electrical engineering, for example. And so you just ignore that. You deserve to be there. You're doing the work. You're putting in the time and you will be successful. You just have to have that vision of you being successful and have that community around you supporting you. And you will be successful. 100%. I believe in that strongly. And I think about sweet being around for 75 years, right? Nesby being around for 50 years. All of our peer organization, our community. And again, we are just a few organizations of many that can provide that resource and that support to those that want to succeed and want to, as you say, belong and stem. Absolutely, you belong and stem. It seems like we've got a lot of similarities in the work that we do. So maybe just want to get your perspective on. And where do you see that we are aligned? And where do you see where maybe there's some unique needs that an organization like SHIP is addressing? That's a great question. There's a couple of areas that I see alignment for us. There's definitely a shared commitment and vision. The alignment that I see is our biggest opportunity and where we're like-minded is empowering women to not only enter STEM studies, STEM careers, but to thrive and become leaders within them. And so the work that we're both doing to address the unique needs that our Latinas and our women have in this journey, I think is an incredible service that we provide. On that note, one day vision, if you will, that I have for young Latinas that are possibly in middle school and are curious about technology, math, engineering, any of the sciences is that one day very soon, they're going to know that SHIP exists, that SWE exists. We want to make sure that whatever her dream is, we're here to achieve her dream of becoming an engineer, a computer sciences, whatever that STEM calling is for them, is that we want to empower them, we want to support them, we want to partner with them to ensure that they achieve this dream. I also feel that as you've basically alluded to earlier, we have a shared method of community and support that building community and providing support is one of our principal values. And because we understand that isolation, as organizations, we understand that belonging, mentorship, and resources can be there for our members when things get tough. And so this alignment, I think, makes us great partners, great collaborators. I think the only unique piece is the bicultural experience that many of our members have, and how we are creating more programs, like Eki Bandobavides, to educate families and parents. If your son or daughter wants to pursue STEM, here's what you can expect, or how we can help you with the high school curriculum, with what the university looks like, how you apply to colleges, how to support your son or daughter in their engineering journey. And so I believe that we have a collective impact, that when we work together, and how our work builds on including more, and ensuring more that we provide a supportive STEM landscape for everyone. - I agree, we're stronger together. - Yes. - And I think for us, we have started to do a lot more with parents and adult influencers, so teachers and administrators, because it's so important that that support system that our younger students have, that they understand the opportunities, first of all, right? This is something women can do and be successful. And like you said, whether it's engineering, computer science, cyber security, AI, any number of things that are in the STEM fields, and then what's needed to be prepared, whether that's middle school, high school, and then getting into college. I know both our organizations have a robust scholarship program. We have mentorship, so there's all these things that I think collectively are available, that I love that we have a partnership because we can cross promote, and that makes that community even that much richer and that much stronger. - Absolutely, I think our partnership and our collaboration is that it allows us to impact more, but also our strengths complement one another. That allows us to serve the greater community of anyone who's interested in STEM, 100%. So we've talked a little bit about the pipeline and supporting girls and getting families engaged. How is SHIP helping Latinas and engineering who have entered the field and now are thinking, gee, I really like to move into leadership. - That's a great question. I feel Karen, that's at the very core of our work at SHIP is providing the dedicated pathways to our family to rise into leadership positions. As Undergrad's We Habushaptina's program, which creates unique programming for leadership development, empowering Latinas at the undergrad level. The SHIP Tina track at our convention is highly attended. It's highly engaging and it serves as a symbol and as a model that when you are passion for mission and you're here to help others, this community that our Latinas, our SHIP Tina's, have created, it only gets bigger every year and only gets stronger every year. And so I believe that this program represents, if you can see it, you can be it, that philosophy to life. So I love that the SHIP Tina network is so strong with in SHIP, we also have a national institute for leadership advancement, which is called Nila. So if you want more intensive leadership training, we have a cornerstone program that provides you high level skills on how to manage teams, how to lead projects, how to collaborate, how to drive change. It prepares them to be leaders not only within their chapters, whether it's a student chapter or a professional chapter, but how they can be leaders within their industries. The other guiding philosophy that we have is collaboration, again reaching out teamwork. We want our Latinas to understand that we're not just training you to be engineers, we're training you to be leaders within your engineering field. And ensure that you understand the resources, how important it is to be team-oriented, and to be committed to serving your communities, but opening that aperture to serving your communities in a different way that helps them advance. - Yeah, again, it's going back to the community, right? And having access to the resources that help you build those critical skills. - Absolutely. - One of the programs we have at Sway is for women who are already in senior roles, but really poised to move into executive leadership. It's called exec. And it's a small cohort by design, so that it kind of becomes this year round support network. But it's something certainly we'd love to see some of your chyptinas get involved in as they move up their career because again it's all about let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's try to leverage the resources we each have through this partnership. That's a great program, Karen, and I can see the need, right, as someone that's been in my career for over 25 years, that the more advanced that you get, regardless of what level you are, you do need that peer group, you need that community, and you need that support. And I feel that that's the driving message that we want to provide all our members, is that your network and your community matter at every stage of your profession and your career development. Again, I completely agree. And we've talked a little bit about advocacy, so I'm just going to toward the end of our conversation, I'm going to pivot a little bit because I know advocacy is a huge part of what ship does, as well as what sui does. In fact, I got to be part of a fireside chat back in February that the ship team organized for International Day of Women and Girls in STEM. So as we reflect on the policy work we both do, where do you think we can have the most impact together? That is a great question, and I do need to acknowledge Mariana and our team for bringing this idea to fruition and bringing this fireside chat with policy makers in Washington DC. And it's interesting because one of our featured speakers was congresswoman Rivas, who I actually just did a podcast with her. And she is a co-chair of the STEM Education Committee. She's right now the only Hispanic woman STEM leader in congress. And so if I think about what that took and she also founded a nonprofit DIY girls in California, what I love about how we can have impact is that we take our collective experience and we take it to either Capitol Hill or one of the things that we're trying to really inspire our chapter leaders to do is to get involved locally with their elected officials, how to get involved in policy making, policy changing where they live. And so I think with respect to advocacy it starts locally and it just grows from there, starts locally, grows regionally, and then it gets to the federal legislative level. And so I feel that this multi-level approach to advocacy and understanding the policies that impact our industries, policies that impact our communities is such an important opportunity and learning experience for all of our members and leaders. And you refer to AI. If we think about AI and how quickly it's evolving, it's imperative that our members start understanding how to shape it as leaders, as innovators, understand what the policy trends are in AI, what the industry trends are in AI. And so powerful opportunity is sure that our communities are represented in technological change and to advocate for legislation for policy that allows us to advance in this area. National engagement and action is always important. DC will always shape what happens to us locally and regionally, but when we can get involved at the local level, we have an opportunity to shape what happens at the national level. So I hope that our members feel empowered to become advocates themselves, regardless if they're a chapter leader, if they're a regional leader, they're a professional member and involved in their professional journeys, that we can with our collective power. And if we think about combined ship, and as be sweet, 175 years with over 80,000 members that have a voice in the policy process. Yeah, it's pretty powerful when you think about it that way. I love two things you talked about because one of the things we're doing at SWE is really providing more resources for our members to do that advocacy locally. It's becoming more and more important to our we reaching school boards. Are we reaching state legislatures? I mean, these are where things about STEM education are being decided now. And so making sure our members who are the subject matter experts in these fields, that their voice is being heard and that those making the decisions understand what's important to the field. And then I think the second piece is when you mentioned, you know, the only Hispanic woman with an engineering degree in Congress. The number of STEM professionals in Congress continues to dwindle as we see retirements and those not running for reelection. So we need our members who have these public service-minded thoughts to step forward. And maybe it starts with a local school board. Maybe it starts with something in the state legislature, but we need our STEM professionals to be part of the conversation as these decisions are being made and to remove some of the biases that are going to happen in things like AI if we're not represented. 100%. So Susanna, as we wrap up the conversation, which has been amazing, I feel like we've covered so many areas. What are kind of closing thoughts or advice you have for listeners? Thank you, Karen. And thank you. This has been inspiring conversation. And when you get like-minded people together, we have shared missions, we have shared like-minded organizations. It's made my Friday. I have to tell you so thank you for this opportunity. I would just like to reinforce to any woman, any Latina out there that if you're on this journey and you feel alone, please reach out to someone and whatever your feelings are completely valid, right? And the difference is the power of building your community. One of the ways that I figured out to build community in Washington, DC was through sharing a meal, cooking food, inviting people over. When you have that experience breaking bread with someone else, it's inviting them to have a conversation with you that you might not have if you're only in a professional setting, right? It just brings down the walls and also creates opportunities for connection. I feel that that's why ship and suite exist. Being around for 75 years, being here for 50 years, there is a common commitment. There is a common value that we're here to help. When you feel that you need the help, please reach out to someone around you. Reach out to me, reach out to Karen, reach out to your local chapter leaders, reach out to your professors, reach out to whoever is within your reach. Someone is waiting to be asked by you to help you. I've lived it through many years of my career. I've lived it throughout my life is please reach out and ask for help because there is someone waiting to help you and understand that it is through our collective power, through our collective unity, through our collective partnership and through our collective community that we can make change happen. The change that you want to see happen is within your reach. Be involved, be engaged and ask for help. And none of us does it alone. No matter what it might look like from the outside, no one does it alone. Well, Susanna, thank you so much for joining us today. I have to say for me, this was a tough week for many reasons and I'm feeling so energized again and feeling like the work is important for both our organizations. We have great missions. As you said, we've been around a long time and we are going to continue to grow and thrive. So thank you so much for being here. For our listeners who want to dive a little deeper, Susanna wrote an in focus article in the summer 2025 issue of Sweet magazine where she discusses ship's recent membership survey and why more must be done to ensure the success of Latinas and STEM. You can find that at sweet.org/magazine right on our homepage, click on magazine. And I hope you'll continue this conversation with us in person at our We25 conference. Ship will be there in the career fair at booth 2134. So be sure to stop by and connect with us. That takes place in October 23rd through 25th in New Orleans. And then it continues the next week in Philadelphia with ships conference, which is October 29th through November 1st at ship.org right from the homepage. I was there earlier today. You can get all the details. So join us in New Orleans, join us in Philadelphia or even better yet. Join us at both. And again, from all of us at Sweet, I'm Karen Horton and thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Diverse. Please don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your social network. You can visit SWE.org to learn more about how the society of women engineers empowers women to achieve their full potential as engineers and leaders. [BLANK_AUDIO]