Samantha Lapin: Her time to transform UNM Engineering’s vision of what is possible
Her story
When Samantha Lapin was a graduate student in nuclear engineering at UNM, she spent the majority of her time (when not working at Sandia National Laboratories) in the basement of the Farris Engineering Center. In those days, the walls were painted a drab, military gray. Upon her arrival, she asked her advisor, Gary Cooper, if they were allowed to paint the walls.
Sure, he said. So she and a few other students chose a popular color at the time — mauve. But when it came time to put the paint on the walls, they were in for a surprise.
“It wasn’t mauve at all. It was bright pink!” But she said they kept it because it did add color to the space. “We called it ‘the mauve room,’ and it stayed that color for years.”
Lapin transformed that space, and she has been transforming things ever since.
The Arizona native earned her bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Arizona, then chose UNM for her master’s studies because of the job opportunities in the field thanks to the proximity of the national labs. Upon graduating from UNM in 1988, she secured a job at S-Cubed as a nuclear engineer. When her boss returned to Sandia, she decided to take a position at a startup called POD Associates, Inc. which at the time did work for the space nuclear power and space debris industries. But as the company came into hard times a few years after she joined, she decided a change was in order. She acquired majority ownership of the company in 1993, shortened the company name to POD, Inc. and took charge of the company, transforming it into a company with an IT focus.
“At the time, federal budgets had been cut in the space nuclear power and space debris industries and never really came back,” Lapin said. “We had been doing IT and software before, but we just started applying them to different industries, such as business systems management and healthcare. You have to go where the work is.”
She said she found that work very satisfying because it was used by clients, not just research and theory in a lab that may never see the light of day.
After serving as POD’s president and CEO for about 15 years, she sold the company (to RESPEC) and then continued working for RESPEC. She retired in 2018 and became a certified mentor with SCORE in Albuquerque, where she works with business owners, sharing her first-hand experience and advice.
In fact, she became a CEO with essentially no experience in the business world. Suddenly, she wasn’t just an engineer but a business owner with employees, debt and shareholders.
“The beauty of youth is that ignorance is bliss,” she said. “If I knew then what I know now, I would never have bought the company.”
Now she has the perspective to share what she learned with others, helping them avoid costly mistakes.
“There are a lot of unknowns in business, and it really comes down to that experience, making a judgment call,” she said. “You learn a lot more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.”
How she is giving back
Her primary gift is the Samantha Lapin and Dale Atkinson Fund to support the Department of Computer Science’s aggressive growth. The fund can be used for any purpose deemed necessary, with the expectation that the Department of Computer Science will grow at an average of 10% annually as measured by graduation rates. In the event this goal is not met, the donor commits the bequest to establish the Samantha Lapin and Dale Atkinson Endowed Professorship in Computer Science.
Lapin says that the most in-demand skillset today is with software engineers, especially those with an undergraduate computer science education.
“We are not keeping up with demand. We need to turn out significantly more undergraduates,” she said. “I love New Mexico, and I’d love to see us thrive when it comes to producing computer scientists. I want UNM to be the university in the state where student come to get computer science degrees.”
Lapin also supports her home department of nuclear engineering, in particular through the creation of the Busch Cooper Roderick Fund for Teaching Enhancement, which honors the three legendary educators in the department by funding teaching assistantships for graduate students interested in a career teaching nuclear engineering. She became passionate about supporting this cause because nuclear engineering program is one of the few programs at UNM that doesn’t utilize teaching assistants, relying entirely on faculty.
“That’s where the next generation of professors comes from, so we need to develop that talent,” she said.
Lapin said she is grateful for the professors, the education and general support she received as a student in nuclear engineering and wants to repay that gratitude.
“It was my graduate degree at UNM that launched my career,” she said. “I would not have had the career I did without that.”
