Meet our 2020 Scholarship Recipients
Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and the members of Asian Commercial Professionals (ACP), we were able to award 7 individuals with $15,500 of scholarships.
Audrey Hoang
What sparked Audrey’s interest in the field of engineering was an experience with another non-profit, Girls Inc. of the Island City (GIIC) Eureka! Program. It was due to this opportunity that she was given the opportunity to explore fields in STEM and be empowered by successful women who showed leadership and confidence. Audrey is now a second year Architectural Engineering student at Cal Poly developing her creative and design skills and hopes that in a couple of years she will be able to further her skills with AutoCAD, Reit, BIM and undertake a Structural Analysis and Design Lab course.
Also involved in her school’s Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Audrey is excited to work on a fulfilling and rewarding project that can potentially make a difference in the lives of people whose homes have been taken away due to natural disasters.
Audrey’s hopes are to one day work for an engineering consulting company as an entry level structural engineer and that with more training and experience, she will be able to advance to a more senior engineering role with greater responsibilities.
Quotable: “Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I feel fortunate to be surrounded by an ethnically diverse community. I am reminded, though, that the Bay Area is an exception. Across the country, we are still very much a minority. I want to encourage other young women, regardless of their race or economic backgrounds, to pursue careers in STEM.”
Danielle Hom
After persisting and sacrificing time with her loved ones in her previous career in retail sales, Danielle realized that she wanted to figure out what is next in her career journey. Before finding out about the Asian Commercial Professionals scholarship fund, Danielle believed that retail was the only option for her. But after being encouraged and motivated by her son, Danielle realized then and there that she wanted to be a role model of what life-long learning looks like and to inspire others who hear her story.
Danielle plans to undertake FMP / IFMA certification to further her knowledge and familiarity of commercial real estate and facilities management within the IT industry.
Quotable: “I’ve noticed within this industry, Asian American women are underrepresented. I believe that I can gain equality in the workplace and contribute fresh perspectives. I want to be a torchbearer for rising Asian American women, illuminating opportunities beyond becoming what is expected of them.”
Ike Moon
As a first-generation Asian immigrant college student living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ike believes in rallying people to come together to create positive change when it comes to fossil fuel depletion and dependency, the climate change crisis and the hearts and minds of the everyday American when it comes to energy consumption.
He shares: “Energy consumption comes from powering buildings to make them functional and comfortable for their occupants. We take this for granted, wasting considerable amounts of energy that could have been avoided had we looked to conserve energy and design better systems.”
That is why Ike is dedicating himself to a field that could help reverse the energy crisis by designing and implementing building improvements with this in mind.
With a goal to become a facility manager, Ike dreams of reaching out to the next generation of students to pursue careers in the facilities and engineering sector.
Quotable: “I urge other young Asian-Americans to consider similar career paths. We need bright, forward-thinking people to help tackle one of the largest energy-intensive sectors in the country.”
Kamil Delgado
Believing in the power of the ACP community, Kamil is looking forward to staying on top of the latest trends in the industry, develop her skill set, meet prospective clients and gain access to important resources that will support her career advancement.
Being able to receive the ACP scholarship will help her become a valuable and effective leader who is determined to be an example that given opportunities to thrive, Asian Americans can excel in industries where they are the minority. She plans to obtain a real estate license.
Kamil’s 5-year-goal is to become a senior operations manager and believes wholeheartedly in “Choose a job you love, and you never have to work a day in your life” to express her passion for the career path she’s working her way towards.
Quotable: “I would like to represent the Asian-American community in real estate by being someone that people can trust and identify themselves with. Being in an industry that lacks diversity, Asian Americans and women have been grossly under-represented. I hope to
empower other people to go after their goals and dreams in life regardless of race or gender.”
Katherline Kho
Currently a freshman at UC Davis pursuing a degree in Managerial Economics, Katherline hopes to be able to work towards becoming a facilities manager. This career goal was realized while interning at a real estate company where she noticed that her favorite parts of the job involved making sure the buildings and its services were up and running well.
This realization did not come easily. Katherine believes this is due to the fact that growing up as a young Asian girl in America, she did not see much representation or role models that she could relate to. She struggled to find ‘her people’ and lacked access to role models with a shared cultural background because her parents had immigrated to the United States alone.
In the future, she plans to contribute to the Asian American community by becoming a role model that others can look up to, someone she searched for but did to find when she was growing up.
Quotable: “I applied for this scholarship because I’m searching to find a community like ACP. An Asian-American community that I can find meaningful connections, lean upon for support and continue to grow. I also want to be able to mentor and guide future generations of youth and nurture a strong sense of belonging in this community.”
Nanthaya Verweij
Nanthaya is a graduating high school senior who will be attending UC Berkeley Her passion for science and engineering began at a young age when she traveled to Thailand and witnessed devastating floods to her relative’s home and neighborhood. Working hard to rebuild the community she found inspiration from her grandfather who had experience building dams and has since been determined to develop sustainable water infrastructures.
Nanthaya is active in her local community volunteering at a food drive and is a member of a women’s construction group called Girls Garage. She is excited and grateful for this scholarship and plans on using it towards her dream of becoming a civil or environmental engineer.
Quotable:
“This experience (in Thailand) tossed a log into the furnace of my soul and it is my mission to do the same for the future generations of Asian American youth.”
Pardeep Gill
With parents who always had big dreams for Pardeep and her brother to be doctors and engineers, Pardeep found herself unsure of what her ‘dream job’ or true passion was. Always trying to fit the mold of what her parents had created for her, she enrolled into UC Davis to pursue a degree in biology but as she was nearing the end of her degree, she realized that healthcare was not path that she wanted.
After working at Google before college, and then getting called in for an interview as a Property Administrator at a Real Estate firm upon graduating, she began considering the possibilities that she could combine two things she discovered she was excited about: a business environment and commercial real estate.
She landed a job at the real estate firm and has become more passionate and eager to learn than ever before in her life! With a new sense of direction and tangible goals she can work towards, Pardeep is committed to growing within the industry. She is currently pursuing an MBA at Saint Mary’s College of California and has a 5-year-goal of transitioning into a property manager role with a portfolio of properties.
Quotable: “I believe that there are not enough women in the industry and that it is still highly male dominated. I intend to make a name for myself within the industry and leave my mark in commercial real estate as an Asian woman. I want to use my experiences as an Asian woman to transform the world of commercial real estate
and provide a unique perspective to the industry.”