The Latino Professionals Association Celebrates Latine Heritage Month with Yo Soy! Sustaining Energy and the Community
Gloria Castillo Posada emigrated from Bogata, Colombia to study sustainability and energy at the Nelson Institute at UW-Madison.
by Jonathan Gramling
Colombia is a beautiful country located in northwestern South American with lush, diverse flora and diverse terrain that spans from the Andes Mountains to tropical beaches in the Caribbean. This is the land that inspired Gloria Castillo Posada to take up sustainability. She earned a degree in ecology before heading to UW-Madison to study sustainability and energy at the Nelson Institute.
“I very much focused on the science, the more technical part of understanding the systems and the environment,” Castillo Posada said. “But I was also very interested in the cultural and community aspect of it. How do you really connect a society to resources? That is what led me later to work on community engagement and on partnership relationships and really trying to listen to the different voices to what comes with sustainability and solving the issues around how we manage our precious resources.”
After that, Castillo Posada entered the world of nonprofits.
“After grad school, I worked for Sustain Dane for a couple of years, also managing some of the stakeholder relationships and community engagement programs there,” Castillo Posada said. “I also worked for the YWCA, part of their Racial Equity Team there. It was a wonderful experience being involved with non-profits.”
Castillo Posada’s education and experience were a perfect match of her when she went to work for MGE six years ago in their community programs, first on the commercial side and then the residential and community partnership side where she lends her expertise.
“Now especially working with the energy sector, especially for MGE, I am committed to the community,” Castillo Posada said. “I’m committed to bring clean energy to our customers. I think more than ever, we’re very invested in making sure all of our customers are understanding what are programs, what are the options and what energy efficiency programs are available to them from concerns of how do you pay the bill and what are we paying for. What are the new technologies that are available for us to be more sustainable and be part of the clean energy wave that we are living? I think that’s the relevance of what we are doing right now.”
With her knowledge about sustainability and her connections to the nonprofit world, Castillo Posada is the perfect bridge between MGE and the community.
“Part of my role is to be the voices of the customers, bringing the voices of the customers to MGE, really understanding what our customers are facing, what the challenges and the opportunities that they are experiencing and bringing that back to MGE,” Castillo Posada said. “And then helping MGE understand what our customers are experiencing and then for MGE to take that feedback and help create or improve our programming and offerings and being very culturally relevant to what we are giving and how we are engaging the different lens of our customers and then bringing that back to our customers. Really, it’s a two-way relationship. It’s being a bridge. It’s being that person who can communicate effectively between the different partners and the different stakeholders and really understanding everyone’s concern, but also what everyone is interested in, bringing that together and helping create programs that we all can agree on or are comfortable with.”
And it is the community side of her work that really energizes Castillo Posada.
“One of the things that I most enjoy is our relationship with those partners,” Castillo Posada said. “As you said, MGE has been a member of our community for many, many years. And that has given us opportunities to really connect, to really partner with the university, with community organizations, the schools, all kinds of different groups that at the end, we all have similar goals, which is a thriving community, a thriving Madison. I think connecting with those people who come from different ways of thinking, from different pathways, different perspectives, I think that really energies me. And I bring my own experiences to the table.”
There is also the diversity of ways that Castillo Posada reaches out to the community in culturally-relevant ways, from Diá de Futbol at Leopold Elementary School to hitting the airways.
“I host a monthly show with La Movida where we talk about all kinds of different topics around energy,” Castillo Posada said. “This is a bilingual program, so we really try to connect with the audience and really try to make it important for them. That process of translation and really trying to make it significant for people is a challenge. I really enjoy doing that and finding people in the community who say, ‘Yeah, I listen to your program. I think that’s important.’”
Castillo Posada feels that her work is having a positive impact on the community.
“I think that sustainability is a topic that is strong in the minds of everyone,” Castillo Posada emphasized. “I think we are all experiencing a time where we need to be very aware and conscious about how we distribute our money. So I think especially for our customers today, helping them figure out what are the best ways to save energy, what are the most efficient ways to save energy, so that they can do simple things as renters. There are many ways that people can save. I think that is the other way that I love helping our customers who figure out for their specific situation what we can do so you can still save on your bill. And I think in the end, we want everyone to be safe, to be comfortable, to feel well. This is just one way that we can do that.”
With the negative environment that Donald Trump is making for immigrant communities, the community work becomes tougher as people’s resources are stretched even thinner.
“It’s not new,” Castillo Posada said about the challenge. “But it doesn’t mean that it is not so challenging to support our families through the processes and when they are trying to juggle different needs and different programs and circumstances with limited resources, then the challenge becomes how can you support them during this time. As a Latino person myself, the work is always personal. So you feel like you want to help your people. You want to help your community. Sometimes you don’t have all of the resources that you try your best to connect to those people who may have those resources or other ways to support a family. It’s not always easy. And that becomes the challenge. But I think our community is strong, so we just try our best to move forward.”
With all of the people to people interaction and energy that comes with community outreach, Castillo Posada enjoys spending her free time on the quiet side.
“I love coffee,” Castillo Posada said with a laugh. “I’m a classic Colombian girl who loves her coffee. So I just drink a lot of coffee. I read a nice book. I just enjoy the calm. I can play music and have a quiet time in my house where I can just breath and relax. And I love the change of seasons. Now that we are transitioning to fall, I just love seeing nature do her thing. It takes me to different reflections on my own life, my own transitions in life. I do like time in nature. I love hiking and walking and taking it all in because it changes so quickly. So I enjoy every season that we experience here in Madison.”
Castillo also gives some of the time to nonprofit boards like the YXCA of Madison. But what is extra special to her is being on the advisory board of the Nelson Institute, a way to give back.
“I get to talk from my own experiences as someone who went through that program,” Castillo Posada said. “But now I am trying to make it better for the kids who are there and also try to connect the university to our larger city, so that they can see what sustainability looks like outside of the university and academia and look at other places that are thinking about being intentional.”
As a successful Latina professional, Castillo Posada is also aware that she needs to be a good role model in a city where young Latine children may not come across Latine professionals every day.
“I think that is a very important part of me, just being a good role model, especially for other Latina girls who are growing up here in Madison,” Castillo Posada said. “Sometimes they don’t necessarily see a lot of Latina women or they do, but they are not as busy in positions of leadership or the spaces where they can use their voice or position to make ideas for projects and something they are interested in to highlight that. I always try to be very mindful in the spaces where older kids, especially girls are watching so that they can see that it is possible for them to be whatever they want to be.”
Castillo Posada is delighted to be recognized with a Yo Soy recognition by the Latino Professionals Association.
“LPA has been an organization close to my heart for many, many years, first as one of the organizations I learned about when I moved to Madison many years ago,” Castillo Posada said. “Through my work at MGE, I’ve also been able to support them and be there with them in different years. I’m a big believer in their work, a big believer in the leadership of things that they have been doing in the past years. So kind of being part of the recognition now is a full-circle for me. Again it is how we continue to elevate those voices in the way that we have been doing not just for these people, but for the many people in the Latino community who have been doing such good work for a long time.”
Congratulations to Gloria Castillo Posada for her work helping the community move forward.
