Amazing people around you…

Do you see amazing people around you?  I’ll bet you do.  The goal is to learn something from each of them and figure out how to apply it to your own life.

This week’s guest, for example, had as an early inspiration in her life, her grandfather.  Adriana Vela’s grandfather was an inspiration to her because he taught himself to write music and play five instruments, even though he’d never had any formal musical training.

Additionally, he would challenge Adriana and her financial calculator to see which of them (Adriana and her calculator v. her grandfather) could figure out the answer to a mathematical problem more quickly.  Adriana’s grandfather was quicker with his answers simply by figuring them out in his head, than the calculator!

From his example, Adriana learned if he could do all that without any formal education, anyone could teach themselves to do anything.  She took this inspiration and used it, in part, to create her current non-profit organization, NanoBioNexus, without any formal training in the biosciences or nanotechnology.

Another early inspiration to Adriana was her aunt, who encouraged her to see beyond the day to day, and to fight for her dreams, even if they were something that she’d never experienced or knew first hand.  Her aunt believed in Adriana’s *potential* and *capacity.*

For each of us, there are people in our lives around us that inspire us or teach us or move us, in big or in small ways.  I encourage you to thank them and strive to be an inspiration to those around YOU.

Adriana Vela

Adriana Vela has been at the forefront of the nanobiotechnology sector for the last six years. After 18 years of tracking leading-edge technologies in the high-tech industry and defining new markets, Adriana embarked in the Life Sciences arena through various client-led projects.

>> Join me as I discuss with Adriana her history in the Life Sciences and how she came to nanobiotechnology…

In 2004, Adriana founded NanoBioNexus (www.nanobionexus.org), a not-for-profit corporation whose goal is to promote safe and market-accepted advances in nanosciences by tracking nanotech applications in areas ranging from diagnostics to therapeutics to medical devices. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular levels in the 1-100 nanometers in scale where novel properties and functions are made possible.

She leads a team of high caliber scientists and business professionals and has developed an international presence for NanoBioNexus.

Under her leadership, NanoBioNexus was selected to participate in a $20 million, 5-year grant funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the creation of a Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) dedicated to the research, development and education of nanotechnology as applied to cancer. The center, named NanoTumor Center (www.ntc-ccne.org), includes an Educational Core where Adriana serves as project co-lead. The core is tasked with developing educational strategies, tools and outreach programs for intra-center members as well as the healthcare community and general public.

>> I’ll be asking Adriana about the direction of NanoBioNexus in the future…

Prior to founding NanoBioNexus, Adriana was instrumental in building and shaping a similar organization from the ground up while in Silicon Valley. She has served on several boards and decision-making committees and held various management positions.

As a professional consultant and strategic advisor, she has assisted start-up companies in securing funding, doing market validation, customer acquisition and go-to-market strategies.

>> What can we learn from Adriana’s business experience and her insights in taking companies to the next level?

Adriana’s Fortune 100 corporate experience includes management positions at Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computers and Tandem Computer with global responsibility for driving new technologies. During this time she was the executive sponsor for over 15 international road shows designed and tailored for various audiences as part of her sales turnaround strategy or market development strategy with specialization in Latin America.

Adriana has also brought dozens of technology products to market, has managed multi-million dollar corporate initiatives, and has been a dynamic public speaker with engagements worldwide.

Adriana created the strategy and was the driving force behind a multi-company standards initiative leading to the creation of a new PCI SIG-sanctioned industry standard called Hot-Plug PCI, forever changing the architectural requirements of computers.

Born in Laredo, Texas, Adriana was one of four children and the only girl.

She credits her ongoing success to a love of learning new things, willingness to take on new challenges and her interest in expanding her horizons on a daily basis. This perspective mirrors her family life which she shares with husband, Mike Milani, and two children, Nikita (13) and Arthur (8).

>> I’ll be talking with Adriana about how she combines her career and family lives.

Her hobbies include gardening, movies and entertaining and her favorite sports are martial arts, handball, archery, backpacking and cross-country skiing. Her biggest passion is promoting education at all levels and is actively involved in many outreach activities.

She holds a Bachelors of Business Administration/InformationTechnology from the University of Texas in Austin.

>> Join me while I talk with this inspiring woman!

Memorial Day…

A moment to honor those who have perished in military service to the U.S.  The holiday is not just one that marks the passage from spring into summer, but is also a holiday that makes us realize that in fact many people have died for this country,
and this is a very possible outcome for the many young people who enlist today.

Regardless of your feelings on the current (and former) military conflict(s) in which the U.S. has engaged, I encourage each of us to reflect on (and discuss with others) why Memorial Day is important.

The history of military service over the years shows that many Latinos have been involved in the various conflicts.  An estimated 500,000 Latino-Americans served in World War II.  The numbers in the U.S. military today are large, and Latinos are a target for military recruiters.

For example, José Antonio Gutiérrez was the second soldier to die fighting for the U.S. in Operation Iraqi Freedom. José Angel Garibay’s death followed shortly thereafter. Both men entered this country undocumented, and while neither was a United States citizen at the time of his death, they are citizens now.

Latinos have been awarded many honors for their service, including Purple Hearts, Navy Crosses, etc.  In addition to awards and honors that may be garnered, people also offer other "benefits" to Latinos to entice them to enlist in the military.

In 2002, President Bush announced that non-naturalized soldiers serving honorably in the "war on terrorism" could apply for citizenship immediately upon enlisting.  However, this offer does not ignore the other requirements for citizenship, which can be difficult to meet for some youth.

Nevertheless, it is mostly Latinos who have taken advantage of this offer.

So it behooves us all to recognize those who have been lost to us, as well as to think about and discuss the issues of Latinos in the military with our friends, our family, our colleagues and our young people.

Inspirational events…

This week I’ve been at Hispanic Business Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards function and what an amazing event!

The women here have been inspiring and I look forward to having many of them as upcoming guests as part of the series.

One key thing they spoke about today is… similar to what Manuela Bump Murillo, this week’s guest, talked about and that is:  who you are — your character is not determined by if you succeed or fail, but how you *respond* to that success or failure.

Do you use the experience to learn and grow, or do you use it to either become complacent, or convinced you can’t do something?

The importance is in your reaction to your circumstances.

Manuela Bump Murillo

Manuela Bump Murillo was born in a fishing village in Honduras on the Caribbean.  She was one of nine children (many of whom have since gone on to great success – among them lawyers and business owners). Her father was a fisherman and her mother would plant beans and corn in the nearby mountains.

Manuela learned how to work very early in life, and is very grateful for, and proud of, her work ethic. She sold fish for her father and coconut candy for her mother starting at age five. She also helped her mother prepare the corn for the market. During this period of her life Manuela had no shoes because her parents’ income was not enough to support the family and afford this kind of expense.

When Manuela was seven years old a hurricane blew away their house. Her mother took the children to live in the city — San Pedro Sula — where Manuela started school. The family lived in a hovel and slept on the floor. They had to walk a long way to school and she owned only one pair of shoes that had to last the entire year. Her dresses were home made.

To support her children, Manuela’s mother took in laundry and made tamales that Manuela would sell in the neighborhood. The family’s diet in those days consisted mostly of boiled green plantains and coarse beans.  Many a night the children went to bed on an empty stomach.

Manuela was later enrolled in a Catholic secondary school run by Spanish nuns. There she was trained to be a maid. Her mother had to sew her uniforms at a great cost. The school provided the students with bread and milk. The students had to provide their own lunch, which was a major challenge.

>>  What lessons did Manuela learn as a young girl that have stayed with  her until today?

Manuela came to United States when she was 18 years old and lived with her aunt and uncle.  She learned English and attended several trade schools (secretarial, beauty school).  She did not graduate from a four year college, but she has an associate degree, and likes to say she graduated from the school of “hard knocks.”  Lack of extensive formal education, however, did not hamper Manuela’s success.

Through the years she educated herself in many areas that allowed her to take advantage of opportunities that came her way.

>>  Join me as I ask Manuela how she identified these opportunities and what suggestions she would have for others.

For example, sales was always a strong area for her (perhaps since she started so young) and she is a very successful saleswoman, first in insurance and financial products, and later in real estate.

She sold insurance and financial products for 15 years and holds State licenses in Health Insurance and Securities 6 and 63.  During this part of her career, she was a top insurance agent.

Later, in 1999, Manuela went into real estate and was a top agent for Century 21 for 4 years in a row.  She obtained her Real Estate Brokers License, and in 2005, she opened her own real estate firm, Buena Casa Realty.

When she started in real estate she became an investor and bought, fixed and sold properties.  She also worked with many investors and helped them reach their dream of becoming millionaires through real estate.  She currently owns 25 properties in San Diego and one in Los Angeles, including the commercial building which houses her office.  She is very proud of the fact that she has built her Real Estate Portfolio to be worth several million dollars in just six years.

She was also trained and hired as a coach to real estate agents by the Mike Ferry Organization.  That job allowed her to mentor many Latinas and Latinos that are in real estate.

>>  What drew Manuela to sales and what has she learned from her career decisions?

In addition to her career path, Manuela is a devoted wife and mother, and is in involved in several community projects, both in her local area, as well as in her home country of Honduras.

After coming to the U.S., she got married and had two children that now are 29 and 25 years old. She was subsequently divorced and was single for 13 years. Her son graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Finance and her daughter is a graduate of UCLA with a degree in Fine Arts.  She remarried 4 years ago.  Her husband is a professor of History at San Diego State University and is from Costa Rica. Manuela is the hub of her extended family; many of whom have followed her to the United States.

In the community, Manuela has worked with the Flying Samaritans and Meals on Wheels. She has been a member of the House of Latin America and a board member of the National Latina Business Women’s Association. She is a member of Toastmaster’s International, a public speaking organization, and was her area’s President for a time. She is a Christian and attends a Baptist Church.  And during the summer of 2008, she will be hosting teachers from China, Korea and Japan who will live at her home for one month at a time while they study English.

Manuela is also very dedicated to helping people in her home country of Honduras.  She is very proud of founding a community effort named La Mosquitia Project for which she built a school in a remote area of the country. The Project includes a school for women and teaches trades that will help them earn income to support their family.  Currently, many women earn their living by going to the mountain to plant corn and vegetable crops.  When these women go up the mountains they often get bitten by poisonous snakes.  Manuela wishes to see women be able to earn a living without risking their lives.   In the future La Mosquitia Project plans to build a library and train women for leadership roles. This remote, isolated and poor area reminds Manuela of her own roots and she is committed to see it prosper and to promote it worldwide.

Her dream is to some day spend a lot of time in that area teaching woman to learn.  Manuela owns a beach house in the area of Honduras where she was born and this year she plans to work with children there teaching them to care for the environment.    She is very much looking forward to working with the children.

>>  I’ll be talking with Manuela about her projects in Honduras and future plans for them.

Manuela considers herself very lucky that she was blessed with a good work ethic and a desire to always do better.  She enjoys sharing her story so that she can inspire other women.

>>  Don’t miss this inspiring woman’s story!!!

***Of all her awards, of which is she the most proud?  Join us for this exciting interview!

Find what motivates YOU…

Each of the women we’ve spoken with have done great things with their lives — they’ve started organizations, run businesses, contributed to the arts, and so on.

And we can learn from each of them what they did to get there, and apply those lessons to our lives, BUT only if we have our own *why.*

By that I mean, we all know what it takes, for example, to succeed in being healthy.  Drink lots of water, get plenty of rest, exercise, and eat moderate amounts of healthful foods.  But unless we have a powerful enough REASON to take action, we may find it difficult to do what we know we need to do.

Therefore, each of us has to find for ourselves what is our MOTIVATION to change or do better or learn a new skill or go and get what we really want.

For Ramona Romero, a strong motivator was her competitive spirit.  For Naomi Quiñonez, she learned that her art actually contributed to OTHERS and that by withholding her gift, she was not hurting only herself.

Polly Baca felt a calling, a mission and *had* to help change the political landscape for others.  Nancy Rodriguez was inspired by her own belief system and after finding her own native spirituality was called to share the art and understanding with others.

And so on…

Many of our interviewees are imbued with a strong sense of gratitude and feel an imperative to give back. And the list goes on.  But really, their motivations may or may not be relevant to *your* life.

What do you want in your life?  And what’s YOUR motivation to go and get it?  We can learn lots of skills and insights from our interviewees, but until you decide WHY you want to put it into practice, the information will lie dormant.

I encourage you to find your own inner motivation and let’s put these lessons to work!

Experiences that teach…

One of the big lessons we’ve learned is to allow the "worst" experiences of life to teach you lessons and to take from them what you need to become stronger.

This week’s interviewee, Susana De Anda, lost both parents at a very young age.  Nevertheless, she says this experience (which she says is the worst thing that could ever happen to her) has taught her a sense of fearlessness.

This has given her a sense that she is unstoppable! She feels that she can do whatever she wants or needs to do, because nothing could be worse than what she’s already lived through.

Similarly, Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez shared with us last week the lesson of never assuming the "bad" experiences are truly bad, and vice versa.

Next week’s interviewee also has a story of hardship that she’s turned around.

These are good reminders to take from our life events whatever we can to make us stronger.

Until next week!

Susana De Anda

Susana De Anda, currently Co-Executive Director of the Community Water Center, is our youngest interviewee to date, at 27 years old. The Community Water Center, based in Visalia, CA seeks to ensure that all communities have access to safe, clean and affordable water and was founded in part by Susana.

Susana is the daughter of two immigrants from Mexico, and grew up for the most part in Salinas, California. She was orphaned at 11, but was surrounded by family, including her brother, who has been a major influence in her life.

Although she spent most of her growing up years in Salinas, Susana spent one year in New Hampshire after her parents died where she was sent to live with an aunt.

Although not physically present in her life after age 11, Susana credits her parents with a great deal of long-lasting impact and influence in her life, including impressing upon her the importance of education, in part as a way to get out of working the fields, which they did. She believes her experiences, although difficult, have made her a very strong and independent person, and enormously appreciative of all she has in her life now.

>> Join me as I discuss with Susana how her early experiences shaped her life and gave her the tools she’s used to succeed.

Susana went to the University of California at Santa Barbara and earned her B.A. degree with a double major in Environmental Studies and Geography. From the beginning of her exposure to the area of study, Susana was drawn to environmental studies, including environmental justice and environmental racism, the stories about which resonated with her personally. This social movement work appealed to her, and became part of her life.

Also during her college years, Susana went to Mexico to study, including holding an internship in Mexico.

>> We’ll be talking about the various influences that directed Susana during college, and how her experienced differed from other Latinos around her.

During and after her undergraduate work, she interned with “Agua Pura,” the Santa Barbara County 4-H Youth Development Program, the focus of which was to engage Latino youth and families in water resource issues.

Susana also worked as the Spanish spokesperson for “Project Clean Water” with the Santa Barbara County Water Agency. As the pollution prevention coordinator, Susana managed the Community Hazardous Waste Center and battery and oil recycling projects for Community Environmental Council, a Santa Barbara non-profit organization.

>>How have these early experience in water issues informed what Susana does now?

After a year in Santa Barbara, Susana was looking for her next challenge, and wanted to leave the city to go to a place where her skills could be put to broader use.

Although she didn’t know what “community organizing” was at the time, Susana was drawn to a job posting for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE), where she served as community organizer at CRPE’s Delano office from 2005-2006. Additionally, she was drawn to Delano and its history of community organizing and community organizers.

>> What did Susana learn is entailed in work as a “community organizer”?

She was awarded the Rising Tortuga Award from Latino Issues Forum in 2005 for her willingness to “stick her neck out” for California’s Latino community.

After two years in her position with CRPE, she felt it was important to found an organization whose sole focus was water justice. She is currently running this non-profit and learning as she goes what it means to direct a non-profit organization.

>> Join me as I talk with Susana about her latest challenges and what she’s learned from this postion.

She believes it is important for young Latinas to know that you can be a leader even from a young age. This will be an exciting interview – don’t miss it!!!

Be a Leader and Others will Follow!

Many, many of our interviewees had to find their own way and often convince others to follow them in order  to get where they wanted to go.

Sylvia Mendoza, although winning a prestigious journalism award during college decided against  accepting any of the multiple job offers she received and ended up making her career as a freelance writer, and has had to convince editors to give her stories an outlet.

Polly Baca, as an early pioneer for Mexican-American, and even women, in politics, had to convince others that she was the right candidate for the job when they didn’t want elected offices to be held by women.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, in crafting what the publishing industry said it wanted — a Latina Terry McMillan — created a new genre, and showed them that "Latinas" are not a uniform group, nor able to be encompassed by a simple stereotype.

Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, as one of the — if not THE — first Latina Chief of Staff of a House Committee leads a staff of dozens and leads by example in the nation’s capital.

Nancy Rodriguez led the way in promoting funding for artists of color. 

These women have learned to LEAD in many ways. I encourage you to look for ways to lead, even if it is just leading your own life.

Have a great week!

Further Answers from Rita…

There were several questions that came in during Rita’s interview this week that we didn’t have time to answer during the call.

However, we thought it’d be fun to answer the questions in the newsletter.  So here goes…

1.  Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get involved in politics?

Rita said:  Have you picked a candidate and are you currently working on the Presidential campaign? She notes that the people who work on the campaign are those that receive the Presidential appointments.

2.  Who are your role models?

Rita said:  Her sisters and her family.  Her sister, Maria, she says, is the smartest woman she’s ever met. Another sister, Ida, took care of wards of the state, and yet another sister, Linda, owns her own business. Rita looks to her family as role models.

3.  How do you balance work and family?

Rita said:  Give up the guilt!  It used to be that she’d be at work and feel she should be with her kids, and vice versa.  Her husband showed her that it was important to quit beating herself up.  Rita says, just do the best you can and quit feeling the guilt.  As women, we tend to be too tough on ourselves.

I hope these further words of wisdom from Rita are helpful to you.

See you next week!

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