From early mornings on his grandfather’s farm in Reedley, where the workday began before sunrise, to long hours spent at many of his father’s entrepreneurial ventures, Samuel Gomez’s upbringing was rooted in hard work.
His time outside the classroom wasn’t for rest; it was for what his father referred to as “building character” — whether tending to crops under the Central Valley heat, navigating the unpredictable challenges of running a business or striving for excellence in academics and sports. These early experiences instilled an enduring commitment to hard work and ignited a lifelong passion for solving complex problems.
Guided by the morals and values his family helped cultivate, Gomez soon set out to test his skills without their direct guidance. By age 16, Gomez decided to branch out from the family businesses and took a job at Hamilton Cold Storage, a local cold storage and fruit packing facility.
“When I set foot in that facility and saw all of the automated packaging processes, I knew that this is where the future lay, with robotics and automation,” Gomez said. “It was like the best of both worlds. I could remain in agriculture, but also stay close to innovation and technology, and that was my inspiration for pursuing an undergraduate education in electrical power distribution, automated control systems and robotics at Fresno State.”
Gomez graduated from Fresno State in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Lyles College of Engineering after transferring from Reedley College.Â
Now, with his Fresno State education and work experience serving as his foundation, Gomez is pursuing a doctoral degree. In August, to deepen his expertise in automated control, Gomez began a Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He began research this summer by traveling to Brazil to collaborate with Flextronics, a company that manufactures components like circuit boards for laptops and cell phones. Gomez and his labmates studied the company’s production process to explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning could make it more efficient.
He found support in faculty mentors like Dr. Reza Raeisi who advised his senior design project and helped him explore post-graduation paths.
The program wasn’t without its challenges, but Gomez leaned on the lessons he’d learned early in life to push through.
“There was a great sense of community among students and also within the department,” Gomez said. “I remember working with my senior design team and choosing not to settle. We wanted to build something real, something useful outside the classroom. That mindset has been ingrained in my psyche ever since.”
In 2015, Gomez joined Tasteful Selections, a startup agricultural company that grew and distributed baby potatoes in Bakersfield. Over the next seven years, he led the engineering and technology division as the company grew from a new venture to the U.S. leader in its agricultural category, earning recognition by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing companies for three consecutive years.
Under his technical leadership, the company constructed state-of-the-art, fully automated manufacturing facilities capable of processing over 6 million pounds of product weekly, incorporating robotics, fully autonomous systems and big data analytics for real-time performance monitoring.
“I managed engineering for the longest time, and then my role grew organically to manage IT,” Gomez said. “After working with automated systems for a decade, I realized we were approaching the frontier of AI. I felt it was time to explore what was next, so I decided to pursue a master’s degree.”
Gomez earned a master’s degree in information and data science from UC Berkeley while continuing his leadership role at Tasteful Selections. Simultaneously, he shared his industry expertise by teaching industrial automation courses at Bakersfield College.
Returning to his entrepreneurial roots, Gomez launched SAGO Technology in 2022, an engineering, technology and information company determined to revolutionize the industrial automation industry by providing industrial automation services and technologies to manufacturers across the globe.
“The most rewarding part is providing solutions to problems that clients have been dealing with,” Gomez said. “The process of collaborating with the customer to break down their process and truly understand the root cause or underlying issues always creates the optimal solution. When unanticipated challenges come up along the way, they are often the best learning opportunities.”
Determined to better equip himself to lead his company, he earned a second master’s degree in engineering and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this past spring, where he focused on systems engineering, systems architecture and project management.
He also immersed himself in entrepreneurial coursework and conducted research of automated control systems for manufacturing processes with the FrED Factory Lab.
While completing his degree in Massachusetts, working as a research assistant, and running his business, Gomez remotely co-taught an agricultural and data analytics course at CSU Bakersfield with professor Abran Padilla.
“Samuel has always taken pride in his Central Valley roots, and his drive to aim high while consistently putting in the hard work is truly admirable,” Padilla said. “He’s a shining example of what’s possible when you set your mind to it.”
Through his broader research, Gomez aims to develop a novel technology for automated process control and manufacturing, one that could eventually move beyond the lab and become a commercial product, either as a standalone venture or as part of what SAGO Technology offers its clients.
“There’s no place like home, and Fresno State will always be a special place for me,” Gomez said. “My classes were definitely memorable and taught me that things may be tough and may seem insurmountable, but if you just put in the effort, put your mind to it, you can accomplish what you want to do.”
