2024 STEM Hero Honorees

Education:  Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University;  

With the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Thomas Bueno brought a wealth of construction and project management experience to planning and executing complex design and construction projects, especially in how to forecast workload and resources.

Beyond his technical focus and ability, Tom has demonstrated a masterful ability to communicate and train both our workforce and our executives, and is a tremendous advocate for project management community of practice, teaching in courses across the USACE, and developing trainings on risk management and workload forecasting that provide essential business tools to allow us to effectively deliver our portfolio. 

Tom has also been a driving force in his organization’s drive to leverage data to effectively improve regional business processes, balancing future workload against our required staffing levels and through teaching, coaching, and mentoring technical staff. 

Directly charged with training project managers in our project delivery business process ensuring the right tools are available to enable teams to safely deliver quality projects on time and within budget, Tom is a supremely dedicated mentor, generating, presenting, and clearly articulating training to over 325 members of our programs and project management community of practice. 

Tom is also a resource for the enterprise for methods to forecast future work, risk management, and project delivery business processes. His tremendous experience, from the private sector to his substantial experience with the Corps; he is an exemplary public servant.

 For USACE, quality scheduling underpins meeting our commitments to customers and the American public alike. Tom’s knowledge is essential in allowing us to prepare today to face the challenges of tomorrow. Through rigorous forecasting and aggregated resourcing projections, each contributing their defined requirements in people and resources, define the hurdles that USACE must clear to succeed.  

Charged with delivering vital engineering solutions, in collaboration with our partners, to secure our nation, energize our economy, and reduce disaster risks makes it imperative that we have a well-oiled and efficient business process.  Tom leads the charge in overseeing and implementing that process. 

From a multicultural family, with tremendous experience in government and private sector, Tom embodies Army values.  His decades of experience in teaching, coaching, and mentoring the next generation of project management professionals; his esteem in the organization; and his commitment to his community emphasize how much the organization relies on his work.