• JOSE CRUZ
                                        • MIRIAM CRUZ

JOSE CRUZ (Founder and President)

Mr. Cruz began his career working as the assistant to the Director of Hispanic Affairs in the Clinton White House. His primary focus was the inclusion of national Hispanic leadership in issue meetings and at Presidential events. This included the design of specific events for the President with the Hispanic community. During his time at the White House, Mr. Cruz worked on historical events such as: “The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signing ceremony, The Mideast Peace signing ceremony, The Cinco de Mayo Celebration, Earth Day, and the signing of the National and Community Service Trust Act creating Americorps.

In 1996, Mr. Cruz served as the Assistant Hall Manager to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His responsibilities included overseeing construction of the convention hall and related space as well as disassembly when the convention was over.  He serves as liaison between City of Chicago, the DNC Convention Committee, Secret Service and the White House.  He also handled internal logistics and troubleshooting  during the convention.

In 2004 Mr. Cruz served as the Deputy Director of “Get Out The Vote” (GOTV) for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in the battleground state of Florida. With a focus on the Hispanic community of South Florida, he managed a team of 300 canvassers and eight campaign offices.  His work included management of events with media coverage, early voting and election-day GOTV.  His work contributed to a 7% increase in the Hispanic Democratic vote over the 2000 election.

Mr. Cruz has over eight years of management experience that including serving as vice president of a nonprofit educational consulting firm that served Hispanic colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Mexico and Latin America. An accomplished public speaker, Mr. Cruz is a Chicago native, he received his BA in Art from Eureka College and his Jurist Doctorate from Southern Illinois University School of Law. [top]

MIRIAM I. CRUZ                        

Ms. Miriam Cruz founded an educational consulting firm that for over 25 years served universities and other educational institutions, businesses, governments, and social service organizations in the development of programs and projects related to the Hispanic Community.  Highlights of her career as president of this organization were:

• establishment of the Hispanic Educational Telecommunications System, which links via satellite Hispanic-serving universities throughout the United States making it possible for the member institutions to share academic instruction, curricula programming, and cooperative research;
• development of the Minority Teacher Training Consortium to enhance the training of minority teachers;
• creation of the National Hispanic Bilingual Engineering Program, a multi-campus program to prepare bilingual engineers; and
• establishment of CEPA, an international educational environmental consortium of universities from the U.S. and Latin America in collaboration with several national science laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Also, in 1996 she organized the National Hispanic Religious Partnership for Community Health bringing together over 100 Hispanic religious leaders from different denominations -- including Protestants, Pentecostals and Catholics -- to assist the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in establishing an infrastructure that could be used as a vehicle for addressing health issues identified within the Hispanic community.

Prior to establishing the consulting firm, Ms. Cruz worked as deputy assistant to President Carter for Hispanic Affairs. She came to Washington from the city of Chicago after serving for over 6 years as the first assistant for Hispanic Affairs to Mayor Richard J. Daley and Mayor Michael Bilandic. Through the years she has established an excellent network of Hispanic leaders throughout the country.

Ms. Cruz has received numerous honors and awards, including the Thomas Eleanor Wright Human Relations Award from the City of Chicago and the Medallion of Excellence from the Hispanic Congressional Caucus. She was appointed by President Clinton to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

She is a frequent speaker on Hispanic issues in the United States on college campuses, federal agencies, at religious institutions and before corporate executives.  She has also organized seminars on the Hispanic community in the U.S. and has participated as a speaker in conferences in Latin America, Europe and Africa. [top]