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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have been notified they are to receive achievement awards from the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC).
The awards will be presented Oct. 8 at the HENAAC 16th Annual Conference in Pasadena, Calif. A news release about the awards appears at the HECAAC web site at www.henaac.org/.
Juan Ramirez, a Sandia contractor, will receive the HENAAC Albert V. Baez Award, established in 1995 to honor engineers and scientists for outstanding technical achievements and service to humanity.
Ramirez co-founded el Centro de Ensenanza Moderna (CEM), or center of modern education school, in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The school provides quality, affordable, bilingual education to the young families of Chetumal, his hometown. The city of about 250,000 is a predominantly agricultural coastal area on the Yucatan peninsula.
Robert Longoria will receive HENAAC’s Luminary Award, presented to top Hispanic professionals in engineering, science, and technology. Longoria is being honored for his technical achievements and for his 20 years of commitment to volunteerism in the community, particularly with the Boy Scouts of America.
Longoria has served in numerous scouting capacities. He currently serves as the Council Commissioner for the Great Southwest Council, which is undertaking a concerted effort to provide scouting opportunities in the predominately Hispanic community of south Albuquerque and to youth in the Navajo Nation.
Both winners credit their families for showing them the way. “My father, Don Luis, believed that education was the great equalizer,” says Ramirez. “My mother, Dona Anita, sees the CEM as a celebration of my father’s values and interests.”
“My father, Raymond, served this nation for three decades in the Navy, including risking life and limb in WWII,” says Longoria. “While my father was away, my mother Odelia shouldered the family responsibilities with love, discipline, and strength.”