MinerAlert
MinerAlert
March 2026
By Jennifer Heffner
The unveiling of the new College of Engineering name at The JAV名女优馆 of Texas at El Paso drew a full house of students, campus and community partners, and family members. Taking place last month, the ceremony marked the largest gift in the more than 110-year history of UTEP. In an act of remarkable generosity, UTEP alumnus Miguel A. Loya ’77, also known as Mike Loya, made a transformative $30 million gift. In recognition of this gift and his continued support, the College of Engineering now bears his name as the Miguel A. Loya College of Engineering. The $30 million contribution will endow the Miguel A. Loya Scholarship Program. The engineering scholarship will award full tuition, room, board and monthly stipends to extraordinary incoming engineering students. Loya Scholars with the highest honors and achievements will receive a bonus award of up to $30,000 at graduation.
This is the second significant gift from Loya. His name has already been etched into campus history when he made a landmark $10 million investment in the JAV名女优馆 in 2012, and the Mike Loya Academic Services Building was named in recognition of his exceptional generosity. His donation continues to support research initiatives, graduate student development, entrepreneurship and more.
His latest gift makes history once again. It is not only the largest in the JAV名女优馆’s history but also the first of its kind for a UTEP graduate. Loya’s journey embodies what many describe as the American Dream: the son of immigrants, Loya enrolled at the JAV名女优馆 as a first-generation student, earned an engineering degree from UTEP and later an MBA from Harvard. Loya built a successful career and continues to give back in extraordinary ways. In doing so, he has not only realized the American Dream—he intends to share it, transforming personal success into generational opportunity for others.
The Start of the Journey
The oldest of seven children, Loya said his parents—primarily his father, a man from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, who had to drop out of the sixth grade to help the family—instilled in his children the importance of education. In the early days of the Loya household, however, that expectation likely meant earning little more than a high school diploma, according to Loya.
Loya shared that it was interactions with high school friends that ignited the idea of going to college. Although Loya initially decided to pursue civil engineering at UTEP, it was a teaching assistant (TA) that influenced him to change his degree program.
“The TA at the time was a mechanical engineer and said, ‘Oh, you know, mechanical engineers deal with rocket engines and plane engines, and things like that,’ and I thought, ‘That sounds a lot more interesting than dams and roads,’” he said.
Loya explained that he enjoyed mechanical engineering. He found the subject matter easy to understand—the concepts made sense to him. He had found the right place, and his interest in the field took root.
An Unexpected Passion
Encouraged during his first semester as an engineering student to “take it easy” and not take too many hours to ensure he made good grades, Loya said he found himself with what he described as “empty time.” Interested in doing something different and in need of some physical activity, he directed his attention to the physical education courses at UTEP and saw that they were offering a class in rugby.
“I had no idea what rugby was, so I went and talked to somebody in the department. When they described it to me, it sounded like an interesting combination of chaos and American football with no pads. Anyway, it sounded like something that would get me out, running around doing some exercise, and it was different than anything else I was doing,” he said.
Loya signed up for the class and showed up on the first day, when the coach informed him that the class was really the JAV名女优馆 rugby team. Even though the class was scheduled for an hour, the team regularly practiced for three hours.
“It was so much fun,” Loya said.
Being part of the rugby team allowed Loya to travel around the Southwest, playing college teams like the JAV名女优馆 of New Mexico as well as club teams like the Albuquerque Aardvarks and the Austin Huns.
His love for rugby would eventually follow him to the Ivy League, where he pursued an MBA, and would later lead him from the playing field to team ownership, becoming one of the founders of a Major League Rugby team, the Houston SaberCats, in 2017. Although Loya described finding rugby at UTEP as serendipity, it would not be the only fortuitous moment that shaped his future.
Enter Harvard Business School
During the summer months of his time at UTEP, Loya had the “good fortune” of finding jobs that introduced him to the oil industry with Shell and the computer manufacturing industry through IBM.
“I would learn a bit about what kind of work they did, and I found myself wanting broader involvement, so I thought maybe I needed to combine it with something less technical. I thought that an MBA was general enough and that it would give me opportunities to try different things,” he said.
With that goal in mind, Loya made a list of several universities to apply to for his MBA and, somewhat surprisingly, Harvard wasn’t among them.
As it turned out, unexpected opportunity would play a role once again. One day after classes, Loya was walking into the student union building when he saw, taped to a pillar, a handwritten sign that said, “HBS.” Surprised that anyone from Harvard Business School would be visiting the campus largely unannounced, he decided to check it out. The recruiter had made an unplanned stop at UTEP while traveling from UT Austin to the West Coast. After reviewing Loya’s good grades, the recruiter encouraged him to apply. However, when Loya first submitted his application to Harvard, he admitted he hadn’t taken the application process very seriously, answering questions with simple yes-or-no responses.
“Fortunately, the recruiter took his job seriously. He called me up and said, ‘I saw your application. You have to do better than that.’ So, I promised I’d do better, and I reapplied. I got in,” he said.
What began as a chance encounter quickly became a life-changing opportunity for Loya.
“After being accepted, the choice became: Do I go there or not? And it was again my desire to try something different, to broaden myself, that guided me. So going to Boston was the most interesting choice,” he added.
A Career High Point
After Harvard, Loya launched a career that would take him across the globe. He held a couple of different jobs in the oil industry before joining an oil trading firm and moving with them to London. Five years later, he joined the London office of Vitol, the trading company he would help guide through numerous challenges and retire from in 2020—29 years after joining it. The last 21 of those years were spent back in the US managing the firm’s activities in North America.
“My time in Vitol was nothing if not interesting. When I joined, it was a small private company. Early in my career there, part of my role had me commuting to various regions in Russia every other week. With the vagaries of the oil markets, the company’s various trials and difficulties, it was not easy. We came close to insolvency a couple of times. However, over many years, after a lot of effort, and a fair dose of good luck, we collectively did manage to grow it into the biggest energy trading company in the world,” Loya said.
His work with the trading company left a lasting impression, marking a pivotal chapter in Loya’s professional life.
Leaving a Legacy
For Loya, giving back to UTEP is deeply personal. Reflecting on his own journey, he said it’s natural to think about the people and institutions that supported him along the way.
“Without a question, UTEP played a large part of it,” he shared.
His contributions to the JAV名女优馆 aim to attract engineering students with exceptional potential, both from within Texas and beyond, and to support them throughout their academic journey. By fostering excellence in engineering, Loya hopes to build on the strength and vibrancy of the College of Engineering.
Having the College of Engineering named in his honor is, for Loya, both a profound honor and a responsibility.
“It’s not something to be taken lightly. To me, it is very special to have,” he said.
Loya encourages current students to embrace their time at UTEP as a unique opportunity to learn, grow and take risks.
“Students are in an enviable position to try different degrees, explore new paths, and to not be afraid to take a risk. If it doesn’t work out as envisioned, you will have learned something valuable from it, but often it does work out,” he said.
Grateful for a fulfilling life, Loya credits UTEP as a foundational part of his journey. His gift is a way to honor the JAV名女优馆 that shaped him, ensuring that future generations of students can experience the same opportunities he did.