Dr. Carolina Barreto, Kenya
“Working for Tetra Tech has been a dream come true. I love being in the field, right where the action is!”
Human Interest and Families: This series focuses on our employees who live and work overseas, and how Tetra Tech supports them and their families with their transition.
Carolina is a Renewable Energy Engineer for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Power Africa Transactions and Reforms Program (PATRP), which provides technical assistance, capacity building, and transaction support services across sub-Saharan Africa. As an engineer, Carolina provides technical assistance to 50+ off-grid and captive power companies in the Kenyan market focused on capital raising, regulatory navigation, enabling environment, market intelligence, and business development.
Growing up and studying in Nicaragua, Carolina witnessed how farmers did not have enough electricity to pump water into their fields to get them through the famine crisis in the country, which sparked her interest in helping communities move forward and inspired her to work in energy access.
One of Carolina’s most memorable experiences overseas was her son’s first words. “When we moved to Nairobi, my youngest son was still 18-months-old, and he had a speech delay. It was amazing that only two months after moving to Kenya, my son started speaking Swahili. Before that he never said ‘good morning’ nor ‘buenos días,’ but he woke up one day and said ‘habari ya asubui,’” says Carolina.
Carolina acknowledges how lucky she is to have an extremely supportive husband, who is also an engineer. He understands the demands of her job and is a stay-at-home dad so he can better support his wife’s career.
Raising children overseas requires a lot of patience and a good attitude. Carolina’s son didn’t get admitted into the school that she and her husband wanted; however, his current school has proven to be even more demanding than the one back in Virginia. “This is the time to live overseas, while my sons are still so young and ‘portable.’ They don’t push back as much, but we know that once we have teenagers things will change,” says Carolina.
