Construction entrepreneur Guiomar Obregon is extending and expanding a scholarship program providing engineers from Colombia financial assistance while studying at Georgia Tech.
P2K (formerly Precision 2000), where Ms. Obregon is co-founder and CEO, started in 2017 with $40,000 set aside to be doled out in $10,000-per-year increments over four years to Colombian students that had gained admission to Tech’s master of science program in building construction and facility management. She later tacked on another $10,000.
Now, Precision 2000 is doubling its initial contribution, laying out another $50,000 over the next year for the fellowship.
Preference will be given to graduates of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (where Ms. Obregon’s mother was a scholar) or the Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (Ms. Obregon’s alma mater), especially those with experience working in the United States.
That last bit is important, as many of the fellowship grantees so far have been prior participants in an internship program Precision 2000 launched back in 2006.
Fellowship participants are also invited to intern at Precision 2000 during the summer in Atlanta, and they are offered a job at the company upon completion of the master’s degree.
It’s an effort to build a talent pipeline while giving back to the country where Ms. Obregon grew up. She and her husband, P2K President Carlos Sanchez, both studied civil engineering in Colombia and came to Atlanta from Bogota in the early 1990s, eventually earning degrees from Georgia Tech.
Ms. Obregon, who was born in Boston but raised and educated in Colombia, has told Global Atlanta she initially found it hard to persuade prospective employers in the U.S. of the value of her Colombian training. That sparked an idea: Helping qualified engineers get credentialed in the U.S.
Georgia Tech has also benefited.
“On behalf of the School of Building Construction, I am grateful for your generosity and your trust in the value of graduate education. Coming from industry leaders and GT alumni like you, the impact of the fellowship will go a long way, as previous recipients have attested,” Daniel Castro, professor and chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Building Construction, said in a statement.
Ms. Obregon is a founding president of the Georgia Hispanic Construction Association and has received many awards including the 2017 leadership award from the Georgia-Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Learn more about her journey and the internship and fellowship programs in this Global Atlanta profile:
Building Leaders: Latina-Owned Construction Firm Gives Back to Colombia
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