business backgrounder | education & workforce
Helping STEM Students Thrive
Washington’s MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science
Achievement) program helps bring under-represented populations
into technology classes, internships and college programs.
Brian Mittge
Some groups of students have low rates of participation in science and technology programs. This is a problem,
especially because Washington employers can’t find enough trained high-tech workers. The MESA program
aims to help create a wider, deeper talent pool by tapping into the potential of Washington’s diverse population.
at a glance
Washington’s MESA history dates
back to a 1976 outreach to help
junior high students connect with
By the time Brenda Villasenor simultaneously graduated from high school and Columbia
Basin College, she already had two internships at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
(PNNL) under her belt and was bound for the University of Washington to study mathematics.
While her success was her own, Villasenor acknowledges receiving valuable help
from an innovative state program called MESA, an abbreviation of the fields of its focus:
Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement.
engineering degrees. It expanded to
high-school students in 1979.
The Washington MESA program was
formally launched in 1982.
In 2009, a National Science
Foundation grant allowed four
community colleges to join MESA:
Columbia Basin College,
Highline Community College, Seattle
Central Community College, and
Yakima Valley College. In 2010, the
MESA Community College Program
expanded to include Edmonds
Community College
and Olympic College.
Many of the state’s other community
colleges want to join MESA. The
State Board for Community &
Technical Colleges is asking for state
funding to expand this six-college
pilot program to 20 of the state’s
two-year colleges,
and eventually even more.
40 association of washington business
Jeff Estes, of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, hands a business card to Brenda Villasenor,
who has participated in the Washington MESA program since high school, after she spoke at a
recent reception in the state Capitol.