The Colorado Association of Black Professional Engineers
and Scientists was founded in the late 1970’s by a group
of African-American engineers who shared a desire to increase
the minority representation in technical professions. Its mission
is to encourage and assist African-American and other under-represented
minority youth in the pursuit and attainment of career choices
in engineering and applied science professions. The organization
was incorporated in the state of Colorado in 1980.
In 1980, CABPES established the Junior Engineering
Technical Society (JETS) Chapter No. 3084. The purpose of
the JETS Program was to provide middle school, junior high,
and high school students exposure to careers in engineering
and applied science. Many of the first group of volunteer JETS
technical advisors were engineers from AT&T. Some of these
advisors have remained active participants since the establishment
of the JETS club.
In 1982, the Math Enrichment Program (MEP) was created
to provide traditional math tutoring, homework assistance and
computer-based math training to middle school, junior and senior
high school students. In 1983, as part of the JETS club, a counseling
program was started to further assist students in school and
in career development.
In 1986, members of the Hampton Alumni Association started
the SAT tutorial program. This program was designed to
prepare high school students for taking the SAT College Entrance
Examination. In 1988, CABPES offered to share its computer resources
and space for this worthwhile endeavor.
During the fall 1989, the CABPES Technical Resource Center
was established. It provides a centralized place where students
receive hands-on training and tutoring through the JETS, MEP
and SAT programs.
In 1993, CABPES decided to break away from the national organization
of Junior Engineering Technical Society because of a difference
of opinion on how CABPES wanted to organize its JETS program.
As a result of this decision, CABPES changed the name of this
program from the Junior Engineering Technical Society to Junior
Engineers, Tomorrow’s Scientists.
