HALO hosts Midwest conference

By Grace Meiners

Published April 15, 2008

MU’s chapter of the Hispanic American Leadership Organization hosted its annual regional conference Saturday.

About 45 students from Missouri State University, Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Truman State University, the University of Kansas and Hickman High School attended the event, which focused on the theme “Celebrating our past, building our future.”

The conference featured speakers and workshops on the topic.

Gilbert Sierra and Tencha Vasquez, representatives from the League of United Latin American Citizens, served as keynote speakers.

The Society of Hispanic American Professional Engineers held a workshop that emphasized the importance of teamwork.

During the workshop, students divided into two teams and each was given half of the letters from a phrase. They were encouraged to create as many words as they could from the letters.

Next, the teams combined — along with their letters — to create one large phrase. The expression was “There is no I in teamwork” and was used to show students the importance of collaboration in a globalizing world, SHAPE executive member Wilfred Fonseca said.

“Hispanics tend to feel alone in the world,” Fonseca said. “Teamwork can show them that they’re not.”

FHSU student Sergio Rodriguez said everyone should strive to help humanity.

“When we try to build ourselves up, it doesn’t work,” he said. “We need to try to help build each other up. In society, all you really want is peace.”

A career fair featuring opportunities for young Hispanic Americans was a first for the conference, HALO Vice President Lauren Tussey said.

Representatives from the Social Security Administration, the Federal Reserve System, State Farm Insurance and Verizon Wireless spoke about the many job opportunities within their companies.

Carlos Gomez, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City president, said Hispanics are the number-one group opening new businesses in the U.S. and many companies are looking to hire Hispanics.

“Companies want diversity,” he said. “They want to be inclusive.”

Gomez said he was the first in his family to graduate from college and that he was able to find job opportunities through networking and talking to people.

HCCGKC Sales Director Gabe Muñoz said he was in the first generation of his family to graduate from college. He said everyone in his family had blue-collar jobs and wasn’t sure where to work when he graduated from college.

“I knew I wanted a good job with stable employment,” he said, “but I didn’t have people in my life who knew about internal analysis or jobs like that.”

Gomez said places like Kansas City are looking for young Hispanics to work and live in their cities.

Tussey said that the career fair fit well with one of the objectives of the conference.

“It goes with our theme of building our future,” she said. “Soon we’ll get to celebrate our years in school by graduating, and we need to prepare ourselves.”