Zion Escobar

Zion Escobar is an award-winning civil engineer, founder, thought leader, and cultural advocate who is actively catalyzing investment into historic Freedmen’s Town. She is the founder of the Freedmen’s Town Community Investment Project, which will serve as an equitable economic development partner for Freedmen’s Town.

For more than 15 years before her journey as the former Executive Director of the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, Zion dedicated herself to transforming ideas into action as a civil engineer and green infrastructure advocate, providing highly specialized technical and project support to a diverse range of public agencies, private clients, international NGOs, and design firms from Texas to Silicon Valley, and Shanghai. Her contributions to her profession and community have been recognized with her being named Engineering New Record Magazines’ “Top 20 Under 40 in Texas and Louisiana” as well as the American Society of Civil Engineers’ “Young Engineer of the Year”. In 2020, she was recognized by Girls Inc. of Greater Houston as the recipient of the Eileen Campbell Vanguard Award for being Strong, Smart, and Bold!

Whether seeking to protect communities from flooding and climate change as an engineer or catalyzing the rebirth of Freedmen’s Town, the goal remains the same. Seek out sustainable and collaborative solutions.

She is guided by the principle that “Every project has the opportunity to enrich the lives of citizens through the practice of thoughtful and collaborative design. By bridging the gap between communities, stakeholders, engineers, architects, policymakers, developers, owners, and contractors, I aim to transform ideas into meaningful action.”