Alexandra Figueroa Shares General Motors’ Efforts in Helping Women Succeed

Alexandra Figueroa, Manufacturing Software Engineer for General Motors

By: Cindy G. Castillo

Alexandra Figueroa is proud of the work General Motors is doing to empower women.

As a Manufacturing Software Engineer for the company, not only has Figueroa been able to work for General Motors in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)-related field, but she’s also given the opportunity to give back and encourage other women and students to do the same.

“In my world of engineering, we have a lot of women,” Figueroa said, “[right now] we’re working on telling women that maybe they don’t see themselves [in this career ] but I can say ‘hey look at me, if I was able to do it, so can you.”

Surprisingly enough, it’s been found that women, Hispanics and African-Americans are the most underrepresented groups in many STEM areas, yet they make up the majority of the bulk of the future workforce.

In 2009, 12 percent of STEM workers were non-Hispanic black and Hispanic. But, non-Hispanic black and Hispanic individuals accounted for 25 percent of overall employment.

“However, we’re finding that once we go and speak to the Latino community about these careers, you’ll be surprised to find out how interested they are,” she said.

And now’s the time to be interested, as the National Science Foundation estimates that 80 percent of future jobs in the country will be STEM related.

But as STEM-related jobs increase, people interested in engineering is going down. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, there will be a shortfall of 500,000 engineers in the country by the year 2020.

“We are encouraging people to know that hey, this is where a lot of future jobs might be, and even better, there’s companies like General Motors that support women.

Figueroa would like to see more women involved in STEM fields of work. That is why she took part in this year’s Hispanic Women’s Corporation (HWC) in September. She was able to speak to hundreds of young women enouraging them and answering questions about the STEM field of work.

“I just love that I’m able to give back, working with first-generation college students,” she said, “[as Latinos], we are the future of this country.”

Figueroa is also part of General Motor’s Hispanic Initiative Team (GMHIT), the company’s award-winning Employee Resource Group that focuses on promoting the value of diversity, supporting Hispanics within the company and connecting GM with the Hispanic community.

To learn more about General Motors and the company’s efforts in supporting women, head to www.gm.com/company