We are excited to announce that Jessica Greenough, civil project engineer at Galloway, recently joined the ACE Mentor Program of Colorado (ACE) Associate Board for its inaugural year. ACE is a free afterschool program designed to attract high school students into pursuing careers in the architecture, construction, and engineering industries. Having been with ACE since 2014 and a lead mentor for the program for the last two years, Greenough is an ideal candidate and was asked by the board director to be one of the 10 members.
“I am excited and honored to have been asked to join the ACE Associate Board. I have enjoyed mentoring the students in the classroom, and now being on the board will allow me to keep doing that as well as help the ACE Denver chapter continue to grow,” said Greenough.
The ACE Associate Board was created this year with the intent of allowing the executive board to focus on operational aspects like fundraising and scholarship selection. Also, according to Greenough, the ACE Board Director wanted to give those who were selected to the board experience on how charity boards are run.
“Leonard Darnell with the UC Denver School of Architect, board director, wanted to give those who are selected a peek behind the curtain at how charity boards are run because he wants us to have this be a stepping stool so that later on we can join the ACE Executive Board or a board of a different charity,” she said.
The associate board will mainly work to provide the education pieces such as working on requests for proposals, construction site visits, mentoring and student recruitment, alumni relations with former ACE students, and coordinating the final student presentations. Greenough attended the first meeting this past Tuesday and the new board is currently working on delegating these tasks, but she hopes to work on building alumni relations to create a networking platform.
Greenough has been in the engineering industry for about nine years. With several members of her family in the industry, it comes as no surprise that she took an interest in engineering at a young age.
“I was always a math and science nerd as a kid. I always enjoyed building things; Lincoln logs and legos, etc. So engineering was a natural fit. I really like civil engineering, as it is a more real-world hands-on type of engineering,” she said.
Through ACE, that hands-on type of engineering industry experience is exactly what students receive. ACE is an afterschool mentorship program for high schoolers in the Denver Metro area, Colorado Springs, and Boulder where industry professionals teach students about architecture, construction, and engineering projects. According to Greenough, the goal of the program is to get students interested in STEM and provide experience in the land development aspect of engineering versus the typical robotics and aerospace engineering clubs.
The students, with the guidance of ACE mentors like Greenough, design real-world projects from start to finish such as an elementary school, a tiny home community, a fire station, and a community and learning center. The mentors work with the students once a week for 15 weeks and students can participate during all four years of high school.
Through ACE, Greenough worked in Smokey Hill High School for several years and has worked in Gateway High School for the last three years. She uses her industry experience that she developed at Galloway to mentor these students.
“Galloway definitely helped me develop my skillset. We have a lot of very talented and experienced people here who I have been able to learn from,” she said. “The ratio at Galloway and industry-wide for female to male engineers was very poor when I came out of school…now we have a lot of younger female engineers. I can help guide and mentor, which I like.”
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