Susana Muñoz, global management of change coordinator at ExxonMobil Baytown Olefins Plant, is proud that the ExxonMobil Baytown Technology and Engineering Complex (ExxonMobil BTEC) is in its 33rd year of serving as a Partner In Education (PIE) through the Baytown Chamber of Commerce for San Jacinto Elementary School (SJE). She is the liaison between the partners, and her brother Luis Muñoz is the principal at SJE, so they enjoy working together to support students and staff on the campus.

The bond between brother and sister as PIE representatives extends far beyond the partnership or just a brother-sister relationship. In 2006, shortly before starting his career in Goose Creek CISD and after two years of dialysis, Luis received the ultimate gift from his sister – a healthy kidney.

“She gave me my life back,” Luis said. “I can work now and have a career. She gave me not only the gift of life, but also the gift of having a future to be able to do what I want to do.”

Luis had noticed his feet swelling after activities such as playing soccer with his friends when he was in high school. The family had no medical insurance, so he never had it checked out. After graduating from Ross S. Sterling High School and attending Lee College, he went to the University of Texas at Austin to major in economics and government. Since he was having some health problems in Austin, he went to the clinic on campus.

“They told me my kidneys were shutting down, and they put me in the hospital for dialysis. The next two years were rough. I went to school as much as I could, but I had dialysis every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I graduated from UT, but I wasn’t on schedule,” he said.

When Luis went on the transplant waiting list in 2005, his mother and his sister tested to see if they were a match. His sister was a closer match, and she was willing and able to donate a kidney to her brother.

“I knew that it was the right thing to do, and I wanted to do it,” she said. “It was a little risky, but I knew in my heart that God would take care of me.”

The surgery in January 2006 was successful.

“I immediately felt life and energy coming back into my body,” he said.

While the recovery was a little tougher on Susana, she did bounce back. She has been with ExxonMobil for 10 years now, returning to the place she first worked as a VOE student while in high school at Sterling. She also has had a son, now 12-years-old, since the surgery.

A few months after his kidney transplant, Luis began substitute teaching at Crockett Elementary. He taught eight years at Carver Elementary and became the family involvement coordinator at Ashbel Smith Elementary for 1 ½ years, moving into the assistant principal’s role for the next 5 ½ years. After a year at Horace Mann Junior School as the seventh-grade assistant principal, he returned to SJE, where he once attended school, but this time as the principal. Luis opened the new SJE campus in 2022-2023. He’s come full circle from a bilingual student to the leader of the school with a little help from his sister.

This school year, Luis and Susana started their third year of working together to benefit the students and staff in this state-of-the-art school. Support from ExxonMobil BTEC has included providing Formative, an assessment and data-tracking program; volunteering during STEM Day, bringing breakfast for staff on the first day back at school, “adopting” SJE families every year for Christmas and funding the new Planting Seeds to Grow Giants Garden. Making a difference as Partners In Education is important to the siblings, since after the Muñoz family moved to Baytown from Mexico in 1990, all four children attended SJE as bilingual students, and ExxonMobil BTEC “adopted” their family for Christmas several years.

“Being able to work with San Jacinto Elementary is important for us because we came to the school from Mexico not even knowing English, and we had teachers who helped us learn. I know that many of the children who attend the school are like we were, and they don’t always have opportunities outside of school, so ExxonMobil BTEC wants to give them more opportunities to learn and thrive,” Susana said. “We can at least plant a seed that might inspire the students.”