2022 GMiS Luminary Honorees

Gustavo Grinsteins was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but the deteriorating economic, political and security conditions there forced his family to flee when he was still in middle school.  After the family settled in Florida, he struggled to learn English.  Even after gaining a degree of fluency, his accent proved to be a major obstacle. He focused on school and earned acceptance to Lehigh University to pursue mechanical engineering.  He also pursued U.S. citizenship, which he achieved along with his parents after college.

After graduation, Mr. Grinsteins joined Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado.  He was soon selected for Lockheed Martin’s prestigious Engineering Leadership Development Program designed to deepen the leadership and technical experience of selected employees by moving them through several work rotations.  Now in his third rotation, Mr. Grinsteins serves as a data integration engineer working on artificial intelligence for the product engineering and management team. He’s pursuing his master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering through the program as well. 

Outside of work, Mr. Grinsteins’ impact on K-12 students has been truly astounding.  He’s inspired thousands of aspiring first-generation college students from underserved communities across Colorado to believe that a career in STEM is not only a possibility for them, but a reality.  In 2021 alone, he planned and hosted more than 40 events and interacted with over 4,000 students, recruiting colleagues at Lockheed Martin to participate as well.

Today Mr. Grinsteins still has a hint of an accent when he speaks English, but now he wears it as a badge of honor and takes pride in the history that accent represents.