If she could, Elaine Mendoza would be strapped aboard the space shuttle Discovery, and thrust into deep space to work as a crew member of the International Space Station.

There’s just one tiny problem.

“I’ve always been enamored with space programs and dreamed of being an astronaut,” Mendoza says. “But I realized when I worked at the NASA Ames Research Center in California that I don’t have the stomach for all the spinning and centrifugal forces.”

Nevertheless, Mendoza hasn’t let a little physical deterrent prevent her from working in technology, a passion of hers. As president and CEO of Conceptual MindWorks Inc., the 1983 Holmes graduate is involved in a plethora of exciting technological and scientific research projects for the Department of Defense and major corporations.

For instance, her 70 team members at Conceptual MindWorks are working closely with the U.S. Army Institute for Surgical Research at Brooke Army Medical Center to examine the treatment of soldiers undergoing traumatic injuries.

“Even though our soldiers wear vests that protect them from the actual impact of a bullet, it’s still causing a lot of blunt-force trauma to the body,” Mendoza says. “In some cases, the soldiers are fine, but days later will present with serious bruising or bleeding of the lungs.”

The company also is involved in developing biological and chemical defense systems against such threats as anthrax, and has patents and patents pending for the detection and neutralization of bio-chemical agents.

Conceptual MindWorks is one of the early pioneers, Mendoza says, of the development and introduction of Internet-based electronic medical records (EMRs). Around 2000, the company already had made a name for itself in software development, bio-chemical defense research and epidemiology studies. Through that work, the company realized it could assist physicians with the creation of EMRs.

“We saw a huge opportunity because EMRs at that time were very expensive for small to mid-size physician practices, which are the backbone of the American health system,” the CEO says. “We decided we could come up with a new methodology using the Internet. So we developed Sevocity, our electronic health records product which is all Internet-based.

Convincing physicians to implement EMRs was not so easy at first, Mendoza recalls.

“Today, that’s actually the preferred choice for physicians,” she says. “Think of online banking and shopping. Now it’s everyone’s way of doing business.”

Although the president and CEO is enjoying the rewards of running an in-demand, multi-million dollar corporation, she says that success did not come without its challenges, especially because she was female and Hispanic.

“In the early 90s, technologists weren’t prevalent although we are now,” she says. “Were banks willing to bet on something like this? No, so we had to prove that we were a sound company that was technologically-based.

“But it takes one day at a time to prove that you can deliver, and when you have a customer like the United States Air Force willing to take a chance on you, you build on it.”

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade, who has been Mendoza’s friend for more than 15 years, admires Mendoza’s commitment to her work and to education.

“She’s a great role model for all young women, and she’s done a great job with her business,” Andrade says. “I admire her for her passion for education. She saw what education did for her parents, and she wants to share the message with the rest of Texas that education is the future and it can change our family tree.”

As a teen, Mendoza learned the value of a hard-earned dollar at her first job with Bill Miller Bar-B-Q. “I was a cashier, worked the line and cut pies and brownies,” she says. “They were all about customer service, and would time the line movement. It was hard work, but great training.”

Mendoza credits her parents, Emilio and Mary Lou Mendoza, for instilling in their three daughters the importance of an education. Today, her 75-year-old father teaches materials engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her mom has been the principal at Carlos Coon Elementary for more than 15 years and has been with Northside Independent School District for 40 years.

“They both put themselves through school while we were growing up, and that showed a commitment to education and the idea of lifelong learning,” says Mendoza, who graduated in 1987 from Texas A&M University with a degree in aerospace engineering. “Persistence was also something that was demonstrated to us; and the attitude that it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, you have to pursue your aspirations.”

Mendoza actually got a crash course in operating a business while working with her father, who founded an engineering services company in the late 80s. She quickly learned about financial statements and letters of intents, among other responsibilities, and then got the idea to create her own company, which she did in1990. Her first contracts were with the federal government, including a six-month project to design a model of the retina to show what a pilot would see with a laser lesion to his retina.

“This was during Desert Storm when the Iraqis were pointing their laser-guided missiles in the sky hoping to graze the pilot’s eyes (with the laser),” she says. “The goal of our project was to develop a computer model because (researchers) were using Rhesus monkeys, shooting lasers into their eyes and then extracting the eyeballs.

“So we … made a human-based model, so you could set programs to show what a pilot who has been grazed would see, and what it would look like and how to adjust for it. It’s still being used today by the Air Force.”

Incidentally, Mendoza’s husband, Larry Gay, works at the company as a software developer, although she says she rarely sees him at work. “We have totally separate roles,” she says. “Our team members see him more than I do.”

Although she once wanted to be an astronaut, Mendoza says there is no place she would rather be but here.

“First of all, we have a great opportunity to use technology to make a difference,” she says. “Whether we’re serving war fighters in their mission to serve our country or physicians who are serving patients, we’re very blessed.

“Secondly, we’ve been blessed to work with some incredibly talented people. I love being in San Antonio and doing the things we’re doing. It’s a humbling and awesome experience.”

And with innovative research and more patents pending for Conceptual MindWorks, Mendoza is confident that the best is yet to come.