As a former History and Ethnic Studies student at Oregon State University and graduate of Portland State University I can honestly state that I never expected to earn a living by educating Portland residents on the marvels of homeownership. I also never expected to be asked by my employer to provide support to help them reach the goal of owning their own home. However, looking back, a combination of good fortune and the desire to take on new challenges has allowed for a fruitful transition into my current position as outreach coordinator and pre-purchase coach at Proud Ground, Oregon’s largest community land trust organization. As Proud Ground’s community outreach coordinator, I have been able to take the project management, leadership development, and inter-personal communication skills that I began honing many years ago in Corvallis and apply them to a successful outreach career in Portland. In the past two years, with my efforts and those of my organizations wonderful staff, … [Read more...]

The best career manager is not your neighbor or your current boss. Nope, not even close. The best career manager is you. Yes, you. Only you can weigh your options and choices for careers. You might have a close advisor that provides counsel from time to time. You might even have other an 800 lb gorilla within your organization or just outside pulling for you, but for the most part its all you. Many of us don't realize this until its too late. We let others determine and choose our destiny for us. We let others disrupt our day, our afternoon and weekend. By blindly going into work every day without our antennas on, we don't realize that the organization is changing, federal statutes and budgets are changing, that at a moments notice, the rug is pulled from underneath us. We're bombarded with incoming information and we suffer from filter overload and short-term thinking. Look around. Where are the rugs? Who is on your left or right flank that can help you get where you want to go? … [Read more...]

Recently I received one of the best emails from an old friend . It came from Marco Davis. We hadn't connected in a bit. We ran into national conferences and conventions here and there but it was a hit and miss. Mostly because we were both very busy in our own organizations. Marco and I first met on my very first visit to Washington, D.C. in 1996. I was in town for the National Youth Leadership Forum on Law & the Constitution and I reached out to him and we ended up connecting at a local DC coffee shop. I reached out to Marco because he worked at the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino civic organizations fighting on behalf of the Latino community. We talked at length about community building, community organizing, working in non-profit, building leadership, strategies on closing the Latino high school drop-out (push out) rate, and entrepreneurship. It was one of the coolest meetings I ever had when I was in high school with a bilingual professional that in my … [Read more...]

Not too long ago I received a call on my cell from a 503 area code. It was a close friend in Oregon heavily involved in politics. I was informed that both Ben Unger and Adriana Cañas had just announced their candidacy for public office. Now Ben and I first met in '09 when I was Committee Administrator of the House Committee on Veterans' & Emergency Services in the Oregon Legislature. A very cool, hip and engaged man that knows the issues. He was with his boss at the time, Oregon's Attorney General, John Kroger in the capitol building. I had invited him and Kroger for a forum I was organizing for the Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs in Cornelius. The 45-second conversation ended with a, "Yes, I want to do it. Ben, get it on my calendar." The AG, our Chair Jose Ibarra and I ended up doing it and Ben and I kept in touch--mostly on Facebook. Adriana and I on the other hand have also done a few cool things together. We met at one of Hillsboro's largest Latino cultural … [Read more...]