Today we’d like to introduce you to Luly Castillo
Hi Luly, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My mom was a farmer worker in California, moved to Mexico when her parents retired and met my dad. I moved to Houston Texas with the hopes of learning English and keep my American citizenship. Little did I know that trip to Houston would transform my life for the better.
In 1997, I was in the English as a second language program with the exception of my math class as it was with the English speaker students. My math teacher, Mr. Desrosiers didn’t know Spanish, and I didn’t know English but somehow, we made it work and I finished my Algebra 1 class with the highest grade in the class. My teacher after finishing his Teach for America assignment decided to transfer to a charter school and invited me to apply. I was given a chance to attend the new charter school called YES College Prep where Mr. Desrosiers continued to be my math teacher.
After three long yet short years at YES, my teachers encouraged me to apply for scholarships and universities. To my surprise, I was accepted to all 9 universities I had applied to and was awarded a full scholarship called NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering). I decided to pursue a Mechanical Engineering degree from Drexel University and officially became the first person from both sides of my family to attend an American university and the dream that my farmer grandparents always wished for but were never given the opportunity.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Once I graduated from college, I felt lost as I didn’t know any other engineer to help me or coach me after college to find my way. Thankfully I was accepted into a rotational program that developed the future leaders of CEMEX. The rotational program helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses so that after the program I knew what career to take. After two years with CEMEX, I decided to transition into the oil and gas industry as I wanted to stay local in Houston and knew Oil and Gas was the biggest industry close to home. During my 16 years with Halliburton, I’ve been given many amazing opportunities to explore different avenues such as technology, business development, marketing and currently managing multiple green tech startups that are part of the Halliburton Labs program. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but the key has always been to be open for new opportunities and prepare my self for upcoming opportunities. Along the many career changes, I’ve learned to adapt to new environments, new teams, new cultures and most importantly to new challenges.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
YES is known for transforming everything! transforming the students, the community and the environment around it as YES stands for Youth Engaged in Service. When I first joined YES, our mottos were “whatever it takes” and “leave the place better than how we found it” we were programmed to do whatever it took to get things done, to always improve things around us. I remember thinking at the age of 17 that we had a mission to make the YES branding a better branding for more universities to acknowledge the school and provide more opportunities for the classes behind us. 26 years later, I still believe in leaving YES better than how I found it 26 years ago! I now volunteer as a board of directors to represent the voice of the students, parents and the community that YES serves. In the last couple of years our group did whatever it took to raise more than 80 million dollars to open elementary schools, expanding opportunities to younger students and facilitate the process to not rely heavily on middle school/high school. We also increased the representation of Latino leaders/teachers making YES the school district in the Houston area with the highest Latino teachers/leaders to match the 86% of Latino students we serve. YES also developed a bilingual program where it helps students like me transitioning with English as their second language. The bilingual program is one of my favorite ones as it is a proof that bilingual students can also excel if giving the right resources, some of our students are actually outperforming other students with only one language. YES takes pride in having our alumni students college ready! We are now offering AP courses to every single student to improve their college readiness experience prior to graduation.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Education starts at home and our communities; it takes a village to raise a child! The closer we all work together, the bigger impact we will have in our community. I strongly encourage everyone to volunteer with our organization either with time, talent or resources. Investing in our community will only make our future better. I love bringing students to my job to allow them to see what they can achieve with their hard work and dedication.
