Daniel Vergara

Daniel Vergara chose to major in engineering management because he sees clear advantages in the degree program’s strong combination of industrial engineering and business education.

The multidisciplinary major has “broadened the scope of fields I will be able to pursue” for a career, he says.

But Vergara also took it upon himself to ensure he would benefit from a broad range of educational experiences during his undergraduate years.

While he made determined efforts to reap the range of knowledge provided through studies in the engineering management program at Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, he also took leading roles in extracurricular activities that enhanced skills essential to his professional aspirations.

His major enabled him to earn a Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt certification that attests to learning of valuable business and organizational management principles.

He took every opportunity that engineering management classes offered to get involved in team projects requiring planning, scheduling, budgeting and other tasks that give students “a taste of real-life scenarios,” he says.

Vergara was an outreach coordinator for a student residence halls association on ASU’s Tempe campus, requiring him to promote the participation of other campus organizations and student clubs in those residence halls’ events.

He also served on the finance board for the ASU chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, helping to plan, facilitate and monitor the disbursement of funds for the group’s events.

Vergara also made the dean’s list for his academic performance in eight consecutive semesters and tutored fellow students.

The range of those and other accomplishments earned Vergara the Impact Award for outstanding contributions to the Fulton Schools community.

Vergara’s next step is graduate school, a move he says he feels confident in making because his engineering education at ASU “has taught me to persevere,” and that finding the solutions to problems “is just a matter of staying determined.”

That positive attitude is part of the “engineering mindset,” Vergara says, was instilled in him by Fulton Schools Professor Daniel McCarville. In McCarville’s classes, he learned how to “evaluate any and every process in industry as well as in my personal life,” to reveal “the things that do or do not add value to reaching your life goals,” he says.

Vergara plans to use that guidance to work his way up to an executive-level management position, one that he hopes will enable him to play a “pivotal role in the transition to an online world and help aid in the reduction of carbon emissions.”

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ Fall 2021 class here.