The Gateway Chapter of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE) has announced that Gerardo J. Pinzon, P.E., has been selected as the 2024-2025 Engineer of the Year. Pinzon is one of 26 professional engineers selected for this honor across the state of Texas. Currently, Texas has over 69,000 licensed professional engineers.
Pinzon graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in December of 1987, having been the first of his family to not only graduate from high school but to earn a college degree.
Engineer Gerry Pinzon (left), has been named 2024 -2025 Engineer of the Year by the Gateway Chapter of the Society of Professional Engineers. He is pictured with Edward Garza.
He began his engineering career at Texas Instruments (TI) in Austin as a Process Engineer between 1987 and 1991. He was hired directly out of the University after having competed in three tours of Co-Op with TI. While at TI, he was the technical liaison for the Microwave Circuit Board division and was instrumental in reducing scrap boards by optimizing the micro-drilling process.
Wanting to use his bilingual capabilities, Pinzon landed a job with GODAN Industries, a recent merger between G&O Manufacturing and Daniel Radiators in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico between 1991 and 1994. He was hired as the Project Engineer but quickly became the Engineering and Quality Assurance Manager after having implemented various in-process audits to increase labor times by 10% and decreased th scrap raw material by 15%.
Due to the North American Free-Trade Agreement, all US Companies were required to return not only finished products, but all of the scrap material used in the processing of radiators for the automotive aftermarket. He developed a process to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States but its counterpart in Mexico (SEDESOL).
His was the first US plant in Nuevo Laredo to return the scrap material for proper disposal in the US. This process was not a well-established process but managed to clear both Customs requirements and provide guidance to other engineers in the local industry. The process of collecting all scrap materials required the installation of a 250 gallons per day wastewater treatment plant, which began his interest in the protection of the environment.
Having had a successful process improvement record, Pinzon was promoted to Corporate Manufacturing Engineer with duties to be the technical liaison between corporate management and plant level, establish labor standards and conduct audits for process, and implement product improvements for all the US manufacturing plants for GODAN Industries.
While working in Nuevo Laredo, he enrolled at the local university in the Master of Business Administration. He was also able to apply for his Professional Engineering certificate and received his license. He graduated with his first Masters in December 1995 from Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) in the first-generation class from its new name from Laredo State University.
Having a master’s degree and his Professional Engineering License, he landed a job with the City of Laredo Utilities Department as the Water Manager, in charge of both the water plant and distribution divisions. Within a year, he rose to become the Assistant Utilities Director, where he was the head of operations for both the water and the wastewater departments. This included the managing of all the divisions, water plant, water distribution, water pollution laboratories, wastewater treatment plant, and the wastewater collection.
It was at this time, he decided to enroll in the Master of Environmental Engineering program at Texas A&M Kingsville (TAMUK). This required him to travel 2.5 hours one way trip to attend live courses for duration of his course work. He was able to graduate in May 2002.
In July 2000, he was hired as the first Regional Director for TCEQ Region 16, which encompassed 10 contiguous counties around Laredo. This position required ensuring that all laws and regulations in air, water, and solid waste were properly enforced and to provide legislative expertise to public officials.
After having gained all this experience as a regulator for a public office, he decided to start his own consulting firm. He first worked for local engineering firms to gain experience in private industry. He worked for Rathmell & Gilpin Engineering for 12 months and Trinity Consulting Company for six months, where he learned to prepare environmental assessments, geotechnical reports, material testing reports, and soil testing reports.
He established his own consulting firm in October 2005 known as Zone Environmental, LTD, where he was the general partner and owner. He performed environmental site assessments, environmental compliance consulting, soil analysis, and asbestos inspections.
Pinzon’s passion for education has prompted him take any opportunity to promote not just Engineering but any STEM education. He was offered an opportunity to teach engineering courses at Laredo Community College bin 2003. This opportunity began his new passion to teach. When he became aware that TAMIU was trying to start a new engineering school, so he saw this as an opportunity to follow his passion to promote engineering and use his own story to share with those from his community. He was offered to teach engineering principles courses at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU). It was here that he realized that books for these beginning courses needed updates, so he began research to update first-year books. He contacted McGraw Hill to look at opportunities for newer and more up-to-date textbooks since most were written 20 to 30 years back. It was also at this time that TAMIU Engineering began looking at the opportunity to become ABET accredited. Dr. Bachnak, Dean of Engineering assigned different professors to provide updated textbooks. Since Mr. Pinzon had already done his research for the Engineering Foundations courses, he was given the opportunity to provide his recommendations. McGraw Hill had a program called CREATE that could provide the opportunity to build course material that would optimize and provide more up-to-date material from existing textbooks. He was able to put together a textbook from various textbook chapters that could be used for, not only the Engineering Foundations courses but also the Engineering Graphics class that included AutoCAD instruction. He offered this same textbook to Laredo College for first-year courses in the pre-engineering program.
Pinzon had a successful teaching career at TAMIU because of his connection with the local students in the fact that he was not only raised locally but could speak the same language and was a Professional Engineer from the University of Texas. Thanks to TAMIU’s Department of Engineering, Math, and Physics, he was able to teach up to 18 different courses for the department, i.e., Foundations of Engineering I and II, Engineering Graphics, Thermodynamics, Physics I and their laboratories, Pre-Calculus, Calculus I and II, Astronomy, to name a few.
He enrolled in the Engineering PhD program at TAMUK in 2008 and completed all his coursework and was all but All But Dissertation (ABD) by 2016.
He is heavily involved in the community in not only promoting STEM related programs, but he participates in local civic communities, such as the local Catholic Church. He is a leader in the ACTS Retreats and the Cursillo Movement and in the Knights of Columbus. He is extra ordinary Eucharistic Minister at San Martin Catholic Church. He was a Cub Master and assisted with putting together camps to ensure scouts obtained their patches for advancement. He introduced various STEM related activities, which was a path never introduced at Cub Scout camps.
As an outreach advisor with the university, he was always involved in promoting engineering as a speaker at the local career days and presentations. He was an advisor to the Harmony School of Science as a board member, part of the Career and Technology Education Board at Cigarroa High School, and an advisor to the Laredo College Technical Computer Drafting Board and noW in the workforce education roundtable discussion on the local needs of the workforce.
Pinzon has always had a passion for teaching and helping others and as a bilingual person, he has been an asset wherever he has been involved. He continues to advance in his professional career by always improving his technical knowledge as he is currently certified in fire alarm as a superintendent and as a REMG in the fire sprinkler system design.
Currently, Pinzon is the Building Official for the City of Laredo Building Development Services where could get his certification from the International Code Council. As the Certified Building Official, he is responsible for the development, administration, interpretation, application, and enforcement of the building codes.
I met Gerry Pinzon about 30 years ago when I worked as a consultant on a City of Laredo water system study. I was not aware of his extensive experience in the variety of engineering assignments he has completed as described in the article.
He truly deserves to be congratulated for his accomplishments and for his designation as Engineer of the Year.
Rudy Saucedo, Jr., P.E., Retired