Juan Cantu, Denise Quarles
Juan Cantu, national operations manager for Siemens Smart Infrastructure and Denise Quarles, head of external affairs for Siemens USA’s Southeast region, are named to the Siemens Foundation board of directors.
As national operations manager for Siemens Smart Infrastructure, Juan Cantu is responsible for front-line staffing for service personnel, improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon footprint at customer sites. He has held several service management roles within the company, most recently overseeing 500 employees as Pacific Zone service operations manager, where he supported a diverse customer portfolio ranging from healthcare and K-12 schools to industrial and life sciences. A Certified Energy Manager, Cantu was a nuclear machinist mate in the United States Navy for six years.
Each year, facilitated through the Siemens Foundation, Cantu’s branch hosts a Siemens STEM Day at a nearby elementary school. Siemens STEM Day is an educational program that brings science, technology, engineering and math to life inside and outside of the classroom.
In her role, Denise Quarles partners with Siemens’ leadership to establish public policy and government affairs priorities while spearheading the company’s public policy positions at the state and local level. She focuses on combining infrastructure with technology to meet emerging needs. Prior to Siemens, Quarles served as the director of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability for the City of Atlanta. Before that, she served as vice president of environmental affairs at Southwire Company and adjunct instructor at the University of West Georgia. In addition to her new Siemens Foundation’s role, Quarles is on the board of directors for Greenhouse Accelerator and is a past board member of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Motivated by her history with STEM programs to help pass the torch to tomorrow’s future STEM stars, Quarles credits her enthusiasm for science and engineering to her participation in a program designed to introduce minority students to STEM careers when she was a high school student. The impact of this experience inspired her to ultimately change her degree trajectory from liberal arts to chemical engineering.
For more information, visit www.siemens-foundation.org
