Retired teacher from Brownsville inducted into TSA Hall of Honor

The Technology Student Association has inducted retired Porter High School technology teacher Gustavo Solis into its Hall of Honor, recognizing his role in establishing TSA at Porter and in the Rio Grande Valley.

Solis was inducted April 6 at the TSA state convention in Fort Worth alongside Bill Sturgis of San Antonio as the 16th and 17th educators so honored in the TSA’s 10 years of existence.

In an interview with The Brownsville Herald, Solis said he was “humbled and honored” to have been recognized at the TSA state convention, but was careful to credit fellow teachers who played a role in TSA’s establishment at Porter and Porter TSA’s emergence as a school to be reckoned with in statewide and national competitions.

Solis said he was among a group of Porter teachers recruited in 1992 by Career and Technical Education director Rodger Arredondo to achieve his vision of a magnet school for engineering at Porter.

“Gus, along with several of his colleagues built the Technology Program for Engineering at Porter from ground zero and established, along with other local and Valley high schools, what is currently the RGV TSA Region for South Texas, which today is still very active and continues to grow. He served as a TSA advisor for 14 years, held the position of Regional President and actively served on several TSA Committees,” Solis’ wife Stela posted on Facebook.

During Solis’ tenure at Porter, “TSA students under his guidance competed in nine national competitions, from which his students garnered three national titles and several Top Five and Top 10 awards,” she wrote.

“Gus shares his success with, and gives a sincere ‘thank you,’ to his co-teachers, Hermelinda Garcia, Luis Villarreal, Steve Rodriguez, Bob Stone, Peter Valdez, and John Lynch for their dedication to TSA and to all the academic teachers who were involved in motivating Porter High School students to excel through their determination and leadership,” Solis stated in biographical information shared with The Herald.

Solis recalled Arredondo’s vision Thursday while speaking with The Herald.

“It was a school within a school, and he approached me and the other teachers that he wanted to get this started at Porter High School, and we said yes to him. And that’s how the magnet schools in Brownsville started,” Solis said.

“This was 1992. We were the first magnet school in Brownsville to start this vision that he had. After we started, I believe it was Hanna with medical professions and all of the other schools followed, with fine arts at Lopez, business pathway magnet at Rivera, criminal justice at Pace. So we were the pioneers in Brownsville to get this started,” he said.

Solis said he learned about the national STEM education curriculum Project Lead the Way, or PLTW, while at a convention while he and colleagues were working to establish the engineering magnet school at Porter.

PLTW has since become a model for teaching the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math.

In addition to his 17-year tenure at Porter, Solis, a 1977 graduate of Sam Houston State University, taught at Central Middle School, at the Vela ninth grade campus, and after Porter briefly in the San Benito Independent School District’s IDEA program.

He was also an adjunct professor in the dual enrollment program at Porter through the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

Solis taught for 37 years. He retired in 2009.