McMurry lecturer Sylvia Acevedo's found her path from New Mexico's dirt roads to the stars

Sylvia Acevedo has been many things in her life —entrepreneur, business leader and a literal rocket scientist.

Her journey on the dirt streets of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Acevedo said, and education was the thing that helped her live the "life of my dreams."

"I was really lucky that I grew up in the space age," said Acevedo, who spoke Monday at McMurry University at the third Garrison Entrepreneur Lectureship and Luncheon.

She had dreams of working at NASA and was talented with data, numbers and mathematics.

Following those dreams eventually led to her NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an experience she described as "fantastic."

She went on to a successful career in technology, starting at Apple, then worked with companies such as IBM, Dell and other technology leaders in their top executive tiers.

She also was chairwoman of President Obama’s White House initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics in early childhood leadership, as well as the driver of the administration’s Early Childhood Dual Language Education Policy.

Acevedo served as chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of the USA from May 2017 to August 2020 and was interim director before that.

She is the author of "Path to the Stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist," and currently serves on the Qualcomm board of directors.

The education bug

After working at Dell, Acevedo and three other engineers got the "entrepreneur bug," she said, creating a tech company they ended up selling.

That bug out of her system, another started buzzing around — education.

That was when, Acevedo joked, she decided to "use my powers for good."

"When I saw the demographic shifts, the scale was really big," she said. "And being somebody who was comfortable with big numbers, I thought I could help."

So she started a grassroots campaign around education, one that eventually led to her role in the White House and other career opportunities.

The future is bright for girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics tracks, she said, and one of her key initiatives while involved with Girl Scouts was to get skills attuned to technology into the mix.

Acevedo said she wanted to see girls not just users of emerging technologies but "the creators and inventers and designers."

During her tenure with Girl Scouts, 146 badges were created, "more than any other time in its history," she said.

A total of 126 were STEM-related, she said.

"What I realized is that we can really help make a difference in terms of the workforce," she said. 

Fostering dreams

Looking closely, much of the technological curriculum has been designed around what boys are interested in, Acevedo said.

That realization resulted in partnerships to make sure science and related concepts were being taught in a way relevant to girls, she said.

"A great example of that is how we taught cybersecurity," Acevedo said.

Cybersecurity means malware, protocols and networks, things girls are not often inherently interested in, and "7- and 8-year-old girls never," she said.

"We figured out how to create a curriculum that was very relevant to them," she said. "You get them to sit in a circle and give them a ball of yarn."

Girls pass the yarn to one another, and in short order one has created a visual representation of a physical network.

Then you pick one girl and say she "has a virus," Acevedo said.

"And so, even though she's only 'spoken' to one other girl on the network, because you're all interconnected, the virus spreads, the malware spreads," Acevedo said.

It's an easy but powerful visual image, she said.

"Suddenly, they realize it's not as intimidating," Acevedo said.

If girls truly are interested in something, they eventually gain confidence, she said.

Confidence, coupled with interest, then leads to competence.

In Acevedo's last full year as Girl Scout CEO, more than a million STEM badges were earned, she said.

"So, we were pretty successful," Acevedo said.

Transformation nation

The digital economy is "transforming everything," Acevedo said.

"And so, we need to have a workforce that's really confident and competent," she said. "It doesn't matter what industry you're in, it is impacting it, whether it's fashion, whether it's medical, whether it's technology, whether it's farming. Every single industry."

Right now, there is great potential for Abilene and the surrounding region, she said, with STEM education at its core.

"With the global supply chain being disrupted, so much is coming back stateside," she said before her lecture. "And there's a great opportunity for regional centers, especially those with the digitally-educated workforce."

The "opportunity is now," she said, assuming regions have a strategic plan in place and the educated workforce to realize those goals.

"The government is about to spend $1 trillion improving our infrastructure," Acevedo said. "At the same time, businesses have to create a local supply chain. So I think there's wonderful opportunities for strong regions."

Paul Mason, dean of the Johnson School of Business, said Acevedo was a great choice for the lecture series because she grew up in New Mexico, has Texas ties and has had an exceptionally varied career.

"More than half of our student body (is) female," Mason said, adding bringing in a "role model" such as Acevedo ideally serves an "incentive to achieve" their own dreams.

Brian Bethel covers city and county government and general news for the Abilene Reporter-News.  If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.