Rooted in Covina

Covina is not just where I live. It is the soil where my family planted itself. It is the place that shaped our values, tested our resilience, and gave us the opportunity to build a life through hard work and faith in the future.

After World War II, my grandfather returned home from service and, with my grandmother, chose Covina as the place to raise their family. They believed in this city. They believed in its schools, its neighborhoods, and in the promise that hard work could create stability and opportunity. When my grandmother became a young widow, she fought to stay in the community they had chosen. Raising four children as a single mother on what must have been a tight budget.

My father was the youngest of his siblings. Out of high school, his first job was picking oranges in Covina’s citrus groves. That experience grew into a career with Brown Citrus Machinery and Vita-Pakt. During that career he watched the citrus industry that once defined this city shrink. When the  recession hit and Vita-Pakt shuttered its production warehouse and machine shop on Barranca, he followed the company to the Central Valley. Recently retiring, he worked his entire career in the orange business.

My mother grew up locally as well. She attended Royal Oak when it was still a high school. Today, she continues to serve our community as a Special Needs Instructional Aide at Fairvalley in the Covina Valley Unified School District. For decades, she has poured patience, care, and quiet strength into children and young adults. Spending time at schools across the district; Barranca, Cypress, Sierra Vista, and Lark Ellen the year it closed. She has dedicated her life to lifting others.

My parents raised three children in Covina on working class incomes. We were taught the dignity of work, the importance of community, and the responsibility to give back. I am proud to be a product of Covina’s public schools. Barranca Elementary, Sierra Vista Middle School, and South Hills High School. My brother attended Fairvalley. My sister found herself at Covina High for the band program. My cousins graduated from Charter Oak. Our family story stretches across this community.

Through Cub Scout Pack 820 and later Troop 448, I earned my Eagle Scout rank. It was with the scouts that at Camp Trask, during a lifeguard training event, I met my future spouse, Lauren.

Lauren now serves as a burn nurse. Every day, she cares for patients who are enduring unimaginable pain and long roads to recovery. Her path to nursing was shaped by her own experience after surviving a workplace explosion in 2013, an experience that deepened her commitment to helping others through their hardest moments. She learned the dignity of work from her parents. Lauren's father was a lifelong Teamster in Local 399 who worked tirelessly to provide for his family, and her mother served as a school secretary across the San Gabriel Valley. Their example of hard work, resilience, and commitment to community continues to guide our family and our approach to public service.

Service has never been limited to a job title. It is a responsibility we carry into our community. Over the years, I have volunteered my time and resources locally with mutual aid groups, stepping in where neighbors need immediate support. I have taken shifts with ICE Watch, standing alongside others to ensure transparency and dignity during difficult moments. I have also served on the board of Hope House, a nonprofit started in Covina dedicated to serving individuals with multiple handicaps.  I continue to serve as a director for multiple national nonprofit organizations, including in the role of treasurer for one. Recently I was able to participate and complete the Covina Police Community Academy. Whether at the neighborhood level or on a national board, the work is the same at its core: stewardship, accountability, and showing up for people who rely on you.

My own educational journey was only possible because of public institutions. Commuting from Covina, working hard, and relying on student loans, I earned a BA from Cal Poly Pomona, an MA from Cal State Los Angeles, and finally a Masters of Business Administration from UC Irvine. Those opportunities were not guaranteed, but changed the direction of my life. They were made possible by stable schools, strong public systems, and a community that functioned responsibly. In short, I am the person I am today because of Covina.

In 2015, my grandparents’ home came on the market. Lauren and I were able to place the winning bid. Today I'm honored to live on Navilla, the same street where my aunts and uncles learned to ride bikes in the 1950s and 60s and tend to the Camellias my Grandmother planted decades ago. Maintaining this home has meant repairing what time has worn down. Replacing galvanized pipes. Removing asbestos from the air ducts and lead paint from the walls. At each step preserving the past and investing in the future. Stewardship is not glamorous. It is careful, steady work done so something valuable can endure.

That is how I see the role of City Treasurer.

In 2022, the people of Covina entrusted me with safeguarding the city’s finances. I do not view that responsibility as numbers on a spreadsheet. I see families like mine. Working parents budgeting carefully. Grandparents who built their lives here. New families wondering if they can afford to stay. Small businesses trying to survive economic uncertainty.

Fiscal stewardship is about protecting opportunity. It is about ensuring that Covina remains a place where young people can build their lives, start their families, and feel confident enough in tomorrow to adopt a dog. It is about honoring the sacrifices of those who built this city and making sure we do not gamble away its future.

Covina should be welcoming to everyone who calls it home. From the multi generation residents whose roots run deep, to the working families striving to build something lasting, or the seniors on a fixed income, and finally the newcomers for whom this is the beginning of their own Covina story. Whether your family has been here for seventy years or seven months, you belong here.

Covina gave my family a community to call home. It gave us schools that worked, neighborhoods that felt safe, and the space to grow. It gave me the chance to build a life of service. 

I believe every family deserves that same chance.