Valeo pitches Texas A&M McAllen students on careers in automotive technology and sustainability

Genesis Limón, who hails from Edinburg, envisions that her engineering career will let her work across Texas and maybe around the globe someday after she graduates in 2028. 

But Limón was curious about what was possible as a potential intern or co-op student inside the newest business in McAllen — Valeo. 

That’s why the student at the Texas A&M Higher Education Center in McAllen, who is majoring in mechatronics engineering with a minor in business, attended an event on her college campus at Tres Lagos, where Valeo executives pitched their company to the next-generation workforce. 

Zobeida Gutierrez is a Valeo executive who worked her way up the ranks of the company from its longtime facility in Rio Bravo, Mexico.

“My experience, being from Reynosa, as my hometown, is that I have worked in Germany, Brazil, Japan, France, Spain, and the Americas,” said Gutierrez, Valeo Group CAP-50 director, who lives in Mission. “Picture yourself and your limits by looking at that map. Where do you want to be? Think about the possibilities.” 

Gutierrez said she took a chance to expand her skills by taking a job within the company in Michigan early in her career, and that willingness to leave behind her support network, including family, has benefited her tenure in the industry. 

Now she wants to encourage students to share their own ideas about sustainability in the automotive industry. 

“That’s the challenge that your generation will have going forward: to ensure that the planet is still sustainable for generations to come,” she said. 

Valeo is headquartered in Paris and operates extensively across North America. It maintains a regional headquarters in Troy, Michigan, and manufactures vehicle components ranging from electrical systems to hybrid and driver-assistance technologies.

Valeo’s new McAllen manufacturing operation is designed to support vehicles that increasingly rely on software. The company expects to produce General Motors’ central compute unit, a liquid-cooled system powered by next-generation processors, in McAllen. Those units must process massive amounts of data collected by sensors, cameras, and the vehicle’s systems to operate the vehicle.

Valeo was a pioneer in the automotive industry in incorporating LiDAR sensors into mass-produced commercial vehicles, for example. LiDAR is an acronym for light detection and ranging, which stems from laser technology. It enables vehicles to sense its surroundings by leveraging lasers to create a live 3D map while moving. Valeo has a contract with General Motors for its “next-generation electrical architecture” of vehicles. 

The sustainability seminar included executives such as Ralph Garcia, chief operating officer of the McAllen Economic Development Corporation; Jean-Luc di Paola-Galloni, the chief sustainability officer of Valeo and the company’s global external affairs executive; and Will Wynn, the newest executive director of the Texas A&M Higher Education Center at McAllen. 

“We’re using less plastic and materials, whether it’s metallic parts or raw materials or any type of material. When you have a physical element, it has an equivalent in [carbon dioxide], so the [goal] is to get lighter vehicles with less carbon emissions; it’s a win-win,” di Paola-Galloni, Valeo’s chief sustainability officer, said. “Then, also, the user experience is very important because if you drive and you’re more relaxed [due to automation and safety controls], you’re going to drive better; it also has a positive impact, especially in a country [like the United States] where the driving is long. People [here] have more than 1 or 2 hours of commute every day.” 

Limón, the engineering student, is in the fourth year of her university studies in a potential 5-year master’s program, and she’ll finish her last leg of the journey in College Station, which sits between the major metros of Houston and Austin.

She has work experience, problem-solving skills, and prototype innovation from her apprenticeship at her family’s cabinet-making business in the Rio Grande Valley, and she has traveled to Corpus Christi for temp work. She was inspired to pursue engineering through her experiences with the concept in middle school. 

“Mechatronics is just the addition of robotics and the combination of mechanical engineering with electrical and industrial, aerospace, and computer science. And basically developing the brain of how a mechanism or a robot works,” Limón said. “For me, that’s the future.” 

Limón said she was more interested in a bachelor’s and master’s degree program than trade school because her family encouraged her to consider the respect and variety of options she would have once she entered the professional world. But some of her friends see it differently, asking why she would spend so long as a student when she could earn higher wages out of high school on the vocational track. 

“It’s really challenging as an undergraduate student [to deal with that],” she said. 

Vaelo’s pitch focused on how the company needs the next generation to consider ways to improve sustainability in the automotive parts industry, especially in the “brain” of the vehicle. 

“Working with my dad, we threw a lot away when we would cut wood. But I know that there’s a way to make [scraps] more beneficial and reusable,” she said. “I have not seen [sustainability] emphasized in other companies; this is different. Hopefully I’ll be able to have my own company that has to do with engineering and sustainability and innovating new products.” 

In a world where artificial intelligence, large language models, and automation are increasingly used in business, Limón said she doesn’t rely on AI in her daily life, but she’s noticed it while doing research online.

“I do see [AI] replacing jobs, but not all of them,” she said. 

Increasingly, employers like Valeo emphasized to students that it’s no longer about technical skills but about the ability to communicate, work as a team, accomplish goals, and interact with clients as a professional. 

When asked what she thinks defines a professional, Limón said it’s about accountability, communication, and the ability to interact with people from different backgrounds. 

“It’s about having good morals, and your work has to reflect what you do with the community,” she said.