Sandy Springs few would make a commitment to potential engineers
Sandy Springs citizens Guiomar Obregón and Carlos Sánchez, founders of the P2K building business, returned to Georgia Tech on April 11 to see a classroom dedicated to their business.
It was historic for Ga Tech as it’s the very first classroom committed to a Hispanic enterprise. It represents the determination the pair and their corporation have built to develop options for the subsequent era of civil engineers at Georgia Tech.
Obregón instructed Reporter Newspapers that she arrived to Georgia Tech from Colombia to go to the engineering faculty. She gained a master’s in engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA.
A long time later on, her husband and companion, Carlos Sánchez, was functioning in design when some common contractors recommended that he start out a business as a ton of get the job done was obtainable for qualified minority organizations. That was the start out of P2K.
It took awhile for them to get the enterprise completely ready. Obregón took courses by way of the Modest Business enterprise Administration, discovering how to do points like accounting, arranging coverage and bonding for the company, ahead of they commenced bidding on tasks.
“One day we had been the reduced bidder on a person of the jobs, so the standard contractor reported, ‘Hey, you bid this task. Now you have to get ready and do it,’” she claimed.
Following that, they stored building up the company, employing workforce and sooner or later purchasing their own devices. The business began with an business in their residence, but right after a couple of a long time they opened an business office in Chamblee.
Five decades ago, the couple and their enterprise reconnected with Tech.
“Initially when we were in company, we have been just trying to get organized and do our factor. But then about time, many employees would talk to me ‘How can I go to Tech? I want to go to Georgia Tech, it is a excellent school’,” she said.
The couple had commenced an internship program, bringing civil engineering pupils from Colombia to get a single calendar year of knowledge working at P2K. Right after mastering how work is carried out in the United States, they’d return to Colombia.
“Five several years back, we designed a fellowship method so individuals interns had the possibility to attend Georgia Tech,” she stated.
The fellowship presented them with a economical incentive to go to the college.
But the couple required to do far more as the University of Civil Engineering was close to her coronary heart, Obregón said.
The scholarship application they designed and now the classroom devotion are ways they can assist upcoming generations of civil engineers, she mentioned.
“We want to see more Hispanics pursuing civil engineering at Tech and much more ladies in engineering,” she explained.
The organization would like to just take gain of those people new civil engineers to hire them so P2K can develop and have entry to workers who know the most up-to-date systems.
Most visitors to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Global Airport must be common with the get the job done of P2K. “We have been recognised for one of our knowledge is to get ready the runways and the taxiways at the Atlanta airport, one particular of the busiest airports in the planet,” Obregón stated.
They’ve also done servicing get the job done on Georgia’s interstate highways.
