MinerAlert
The Department of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is celebrating a legacy built over 75 years since the Texas Board of Regents approved the Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering to be offered in the El Paso del Norte Region. Join us on a journey through time and celebrate with us this significant event. We invite you to learn about our alumni’s great achievements told directly by them through captivating oral histories and fascinating mini-interviews. Go back in time and peruse through our photo gallery as well as a detailed timeline where you will learn about the history of the department and the amazing things that have been happening since 1947 in what was formerly known as the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy. Don’t miss the many exciting events happening in the department, such as our much-anticipated legacy exhibit opening at UTEP’s Centennial Museum titled Building the Borderlands: The Legacy of UTEP’s Civil Engineering, where carefully curated memorabilia will be on display to promote our alumni’s many accomplishments and influence on the Borderland’s skyline and the communities across our nation and the world.
Would you like to be part of this amazing project? Tell us your story by contacting us and let us share it with the world!
Join us in celebrating the legacy of UTEP’s Civil Engineering.
Oscar E. Venegas, UTEP BSCE, 1973
“I think that the students at UTEP need to recognize they’re second to none, they’re the best that the educational system has to offer.”
CE: Why did you become a civil engineer?
OV: Coming from a working-class family and wanting to be an architect, I couldn't afford to go to any place that offered an architectural degree, civil engineering was the closest to that. I had a friend since kindergarten, Joe Cardenas, whom I’m still close friends with today, who had an older brother, Tom Cardenas, in civil engineering who kind of mentored me into it.
CE: How did UTEP prepare you for your career?
OV: What I love about civil engineering and what I think is happening in education now is: problem-solving. With civil engineering, problem-solving is visual. If you were to wonder about the strength of steel, for example, there’s a machine that pulls a steel rod until it snaps so you can measure its elasticity and see how strong it is. All these things that you're taught at UTEP are visual and can apply to problem-solving going forward. I think so many times where education lets students down is when it tells you, ‘Memorize the United States Independence Day, then give it back to me on a test.’ There are issues happening today that civil engineering has the answer to. I just marvel at the value of a UTEP degree and the effort some of these students put in to be able to graduate and make a good living off a civil engineering degree. I think that the students at UTEP need to recognize they’re second to none, they’re the best that the educational system has to offer.
CE: What projects in the El Paso area have you worked on?
OV: We just finished what's called Eastlake Marketplace for Jerry Rubin and River Oaks Properties, about a 7.37-million-dollar retail shopping center on the Eastside. We're presently doing phase two and three out there. In the UTEP area, we did the picks that you see along I-10 for TxDOT as a change order to a project that you call an aesthetics project, and the towers along Reynolds, North-South Freeway. In the past, I was president of the company that did the design-build for the Larry Durham center. We did the Schuster apartments for UTEP, the border patrol station out of Lordsburg, New Mexico, and quite a few projects throughout the city and on base. Recently, we completed a vehicle maintenance facility for the Community College.
CE: How has your work affected the lives of everyday El Pasoans?
OV: We have almost 200 employees and those employees have wives, they have children. If you multiply that by four, it's probably about 1000 people. 200 families are directly impacted by my company. We try to treat them very well and they perform very well. We apply engineering, ethics, and principles to our work. My son is also a civil engineering graduate from UTEP and is now running the company. When my granddaughter was in high school, I showed her some of the projects I’ve done, and it piqued her interest. She got her degree at UTEP and is now working for the company, it’s a blessing.
Thank you, Oscar, for all your contributions to creating a better quality of life in the Borderlands as a proud UTEP Civil Engineer.