Walnut Creeker Wins Green Engineer Award

Laura Verduzco of Walnut Creek has won the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Green Engineer Award.

Laura is a Lead Planning Engineer in the Low Carbon Energy group of Chevron's Energy Technology Company, where she assesses the potential implementation of renewable energy technologies, develops tools to measure the carbon lifecycle of the company's products and helps business units implement environmental regulations, according to a society news release.

She was born in Morelia, Mexico. The city has about 1 million inhabitants today, but when Laura was born the population was significantly smaller.

Gentrification happened quickly as people in rural areas moved to the city looking for work and inhabitants of larger cities moved to Morelia looking for a quieter lifestyle. 

This had an impact on Verduzco. As she grew up, her city saw a number of transformations, including traffic congestion, uncontrolled and unplanned urban development and increased pollution. These events contributed to Verduzco's career choice as an engineer with a focus on sustainability.