AC Graduate to Help Administer $2.8 Million Fund at Texas Tech

Martin GutierrezMartin Gutierrez once had a dread of mathematics that he lugged from Caprock High School to Amarillo College.
 
But his dogged persistence at AC’s Math Outreach Center paid enormous dividends – nearly three million of them – as he went on to not only graduate from AC with honors, but to serve as the 2014 student commencement speaker.
 
Now he is a finance major entering his senior year at Texas Tech University, and his math jitters obviously are long gone. Gutierrez is one of just 20 students who have been entrusted with administering a Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) with a present market value of approximately $2.8 million.
 
“It’s a great feeling to have been selected to manage the SMIF because it means they think I have value,” Gutierrez said, “that they value my hard work.
 
“I hated math when I came to AC,” he admits. “In fact, back in high school, I didn’t even think I was college worthy.”
 
But once he’d enrolled at AC, Gutierrez made the decision to go for broke. He joined the Student Government Association and even became a student ambassador in Blue Blazers. Best of all, he discovered that free individualized tutoring was available at the Math Outreach Center.
 
“I was in there getting help constantly,” he said. “The AC math lab made a huge difference in where I am today.”
 
Where he is today is collegiately immersed all over again. After serving a valuable summer internship with a financial advisor in Austin, Gutierrez was selected for inclusion in Tech’s SMIF class, for which only 10 undergraduate and 10 graduate students are chosen each year.
 
SMIF students are required to conduct rigorous, research-based fundamental analysis and valuations of current portfolio holdings and prospective holdings, and very real money is at stake.
 
Gutierrez also recently became president of Tech’s chapter of ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals for America.
 
Martin Gutierrez has no doubt grown since lugging his dread of math to AC. Some might say exponentially.
 
August 19, 2016