By Jondi Gumz
As an eighth-grader at EA Hall Middle School, Joana Rubio was invited to the Bruce Woolpert Algebra Academy, a week of math classes taught by university professors.
She really likes math.
As a freshman at Watsonville High School, she took two math courses.
This enabled her to take analysis last year.
Joanna Rubio
Next stop: Cabrillo College, on the way to civil engineering, and then Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
During her high school years, she served as a mentor at the Algebra Academy and was paid to support and encourage the eighth graders.
This summer, she is doing a paid intern at Woolpert’s family business Graniterock at the quarry that produces stone and sand for construction projects.
And she is a teaching assistant at the Algebra Academy.
When she showed curiosity about mathematics and asked her teachers questions, more doors opened for her.
“They’re willing to teach you more,” she said. “They’re interested and they want you to expand that interest.”
Although Joana may be the only woman in the room, she feels welcome thanks to her mentor Joe Amparan.
“I get the full experience,” she said.
Joana’s experience is exactly what Woolpert, CEO of Graniterock, had in mind when he founded Algebra Academy in 2010.
“This is what Bruce wanted,” said Christy Sessions, executive director of the Algebra Academy.
He wanted to inspire young people to take an interest in math and science, pursue college degrees, and return to work at local companies like Graniterock and Driscoll, which ship berries around the world.
Together with Professor Hongde Hu of CSU Monterey Bay, he founded the Algebra Academy, a nonprofit organization that funds the week-long program with donations.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the program, along with many other activities, had to be suspended for three years, but this summer it fully restarted with 95 students.
Another positive development: A new location for Joby Aviation, the local company working on launching the first electric air taxi that could transform commuting and the transportation industry as a whole.
Joby Aviation hosted 26 students; Driscoll, 42, and Graniterock, 27.
Eighth-graders see what their future workplace might be and delve into linear equations, which can be used to model any real-world phenomenon in which one variable changes at a constant rate relative to another variable.
To determine income over time,
E.g. calculating mileage rates or predicting profits – all useful information.
The lecturer at Graniterock was Justin Lake, a mathematics student at UC Santa Cruz.
“Math is something I really like,” said Brianna Vasquez, 13, an eighth-grader at Rolling Hills Middle School who appreciated the class. “It’s something that challenges me.”
She is interested in construction and business and plans to attend Cabrillo College.
She also plans to share her interest in mathematics with her little sister.
“I want to teach her to love it,” Brianna said.
Rose Ann Woolpert, Bruce’s widow, wears an Algebra Academy polo shirt and is a big supporter.
If Bruce were here – he died in a boating accident in 2018 – what would he say?
Rose Ann had an answer: “He would say wonderful, wonderful.”
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