The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1974 by a group of engineers employed by the city of Los Angeles. Their objective was to form a national organization of professional engineers to serve as role models in the Hispanic community.
Social networking was the key basis for the organization. SHPE quickly established two student chapters to begin the network that would grow to encompass the nation as well as reach countries outside the United States. Today, SHPE enjoys a strong but independent network of professional and student chapters throughout the nation.
National President: Manuel "Manny" Hernandez - President's Message
The Hispanic Alliance for STEM Opportunities is a coalition to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The alliance is made up of SHPE, the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC) and IBM.[1]
SHPE has two three very important conferences though the academic year. First, the National Institute for Leadership Advancement (NILA) is a conference that provides leadership tools to new elected leaders for the undergraduate and professional chapters. This conference is a great opportunity to network with SHPE leaders and build new relationships among chapters. Also, NILA gives a great opportunity to improve the resume of the members that attend because if they pass the final exam at the conference, they obtain a certification for Chapter Leaders. Second, the National SHPE Conference is the best opportunity to network with companies and obtain internships or full time jobs. The National Conference is the biggest conference for Hispanics in United States. More than 200 companies attend to the career fair looking for Hispanic talent. Also, they support different competitions like the Extreme Engineering that consists of a non-stop 24 hours competition to design a specific machine. Another important activity at the Conference is that chapters are awarded for their dedication and improvement over the previous year according to the reports sent. Finally, the Regional Leadership Development Conference (RLCD) is the opportunity for the new leaders of the chapter to increase their leadership abilities and network with the leaders of the region. The seven regions have an RLCD conference each year at a specific university. All the conferences offered increase leadership abilities and network of members.
SHPE is a national organization and is divided into seven regions as the picture below shows.
| Region | States |
|---|---|
| 1 | AK, Northern NV, Northern CA, OR, WA |
| 2 | AZ, HI, Southern CA, Southern NV |
| 3 | CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, ND, MT, SD, UT, WY |
| 4 | CT, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT, VA, WV, PR |
| 5 | AL, AR, LA, MS, OK, TN, TX |
| 6 | IL, IN, IA, KY, MI, MN, MO, OH, WI |
| 7 | NC, SC, GA, FL |
Some professional chapters include:
Some student chapters include: