The Emerald Newsletter | Kappa Delta Chi Sorority Summer/Fall 2018 | Page 52

Meet

Rubi Solis

Alumnae Chapter Development Officer

52

By Rubi Solis, Pi Chapter

Rubi joined the penguin life at The University of Texas – Austin as part of the charter class in 1998. As a first generation Mexican American, she grew up in inner city Houston, graduated valedictorian and was the only one from Sam Houston High School to attend UT that year. She steered towards the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) where she ended up meeting 4 of the other 8 KDChi charters. They decided to bring a service oriented Latina based sorority on campus not only to impact the community, but to establish a network and sisterhood for other women at the university. She was one of two Latinas that graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree in May 2002 and launched straight into a Reliability Engineer position where she worked at several chemical plants

and refineries in the Gulf Coast. She was responsible for providing failure analysis and methods of improvement

both in design and product recommendations to the

customer in order to improve

cost and reliability.

Since then, she’s worked in several advisory roles both in contracts and now in benchmarking. Her current role is as Senior Business Analyst for the international chemical industry and she is responsible for designing and implementing cost and energy studies for the fertilizer industry.

Rubi served on the collegiate executive board throughout her undergraduate years and then joined the national board as National Communications Chair. During her 2 year term, she introduced a new design to the national newsletter, established an interactive map of the sisters’ locations and maintained fluent communication with all collegiate chapters. In 2008, she was recognized as Outstanding Professional of the Year both with KDChi and SHPE and was recognized as Young Engineer of the Year in Houston’s Business Magazine.

Rubi’s KDChi career was temporarily put on hold. She bought her first home at the young age of 27; pursued her MBA degree at the University of Houston and married the love of her life a few years later. She is now a mother of 3 beautiful children Lydia (2), Adrian (3) and Gavino (5). With the passion for her community and now a legacy of her own, she’s decided to focus her efforts as the Alumnae Chapter Development Officer. Rubi’s focus this year is to personally work with alumnae chapters to develop a strong base for all alumnae. The traditions, friendships and family that the sorority provides to over 5,000 women across the country is undeniably the reason why she wants to give back to KDChi. Her motivations are the founders, charters and new members that continue to join the sorority at their schools – to join the family away from home and keep them for life.