College of Engineering News |
| Pictured above are (L-R): CoE Director of Development Chuck Varela, Tower President, Nato Flores, MEP Director Milton Randle, and CoE Dean Edward Hohmann. The photo was taken at the Tower Offices when Flores presented MEP Director Randle with a second $15,000 check sponsoring MEP’s Summer QUEST Program |
Nato Flores,
'79 Mechanical Engineering Alumnus
Nato, an immigrant from Mexico and son of a grape picker, has successfully built Tower General Contractors, a construction company he started in 1985, into the largest minority-owned general contractor in Los Angeles County.
Tower, which is headquartered in Sun Valley, is now a major enterprise responsible for a variety of high profile construction projects, including the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center in Whittier, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center ER, the Gibson Amphitheater and Beverly Hills City Hall renovations. Current projects include a reconstruction of the LAX Theme Building and an $80 million expansion of Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.
Tower became a University Patron in 2008 with a donation of $15,000 to the College of Engineering’s Maximizing Engineering Potential (MEP) Program. Tower’s commitment to assisting minority engineers is a result of Nato Flores’ personal experience at Cal Poly Pomona. His career was launched by receiving a $10,000 scholarship from Rockwell International to attend Cal Poly enabling him to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree in 1979. Nato not only supports our MEP Program financially, but Tower has hired several Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) engineering graduates and the company’s Staff Architect, David Santana is a graduate of CPP’s College of Environmental Design.
Nato Flores will be forever grateful to Cal Poly Pomona for his education and says he intends to continue to support the MEP Program in the future.
December 2009
