Eugene Paul Martinez

B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Class of 1957

Retired as Professor of Mechanical Engineering from Lamar University

‘There were some very good teachers. I got a good education…when I went for my admission at Lamar, I had $50, which paid for everything and I had $5 left over…I was recommended for a scholarship for mechanical engineers for $500, which I received… I received a summer job and earned a good chunk of money that paid for school later on. I was asked to come back the next summer, which I did…In my junior year I was recommended to teach one of the classes when one of the professors had cancer and the students rated me well. I had 103 job offers when I graduated. I ended up turning down all the job offers and chose… Rice…getting a master’s degree. The department head at Lamar who was dying of cancer made me promise that I would teach at Lamar for a year. That’s when I started at Lamar. Everything was very positive except for the money which didn’t matter much to me and added 30 more years to that…  Lamar was in a transition period in the late 1980’s a lot of problems…up until that time Lamar had its own Board of Regents.’