Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Life Takes Shape, with Environ's Lety Mimila

July 18, 2015 marked the ten-year anniversary of Environ Senior Architect Leticia Mimila. To celebrate this milestone, we sat down with the tenured employee for a conversation about what makes her tick.

It all started with shapes. As a child, Lety was chosen to attend a special program for a select group of students who were bused across Long Beach to receive an advanced curriculum. In middle school she was inspired by an exercise in 3D. The more complex the shapes became, the more excitedly she welcomed the challenge. The final assignment was the design of a house, and her path to pursuing architecture was born.

Having grown up in an impoverished neighborhood, Lety struggled to fit in with her less ambitious peers. Sometimes she even found herself hiding her scholastic achievements from friends. This, however, did not keep her from staying the course to prove to certain elders that she would overcome the stereotype of a life that often results from a low-income, single-parent home. The low expectations that some adults in her life had only made her more determined to become the successful, independent woman she is today.