John has led several social change initiatives, served on civic committees and numerous nonprofit boards. He was a founding board member of the Joseph A. Floreano Riverside Convention Center and has been a volunteer with his wife, Nydia’s Borinquen Dance Theatre, since 1981. John was also a co-founder of the Latino Alliance, the Latino Multi Partisan Political Campaign Academy, the Monroe County Latino Archives Project (awarded both New York State and national historic preservation awards;) Rochester Hispanic Business Association; AdOne Advertising & Public Relations and is a founding member of La Cumbre. He is also the first person from Monroe County to receive the New York State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Businessperson of the Year Award.  

For more than 20 years, John has worked in the organizational development field, using a diversity and inclusion framework. His varied and broad assignments have allowed him to work with people committed to social and equity-based change in 37 States. In 2001, he had the honor of being invited to be on a team of 25 consultants to work on what at the time was the largest comprehensive community change initiative in the United States, The Bridges to Our Future Project, in Southwest Michigan. “It was the single most significant project I had worked on at that point because it proved that large-scale community change using a diversity and inclusion framework was effective and life-changing for the people of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph’s Michigan.” 

In 2002, John was nominated by Fredrick Miller, CEO of the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, and selected to serve as a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellow. The fellowship involved traveling throughout the United States and Southern Mexico to study and visit frontline change-makers, policy shapers, indigenous, grassroots, and democratic institutions, and systems change agents working to improve the living conditions for people living on society’s margins. “Our task was to explore, question, and discover how social change occurs across cultural, political, social identity groups, and policy interest.” This experience took John to San Cristóbal in southern Mexico along the border with Guatemala, the Cheyanne Reservation in Montana, and many urban and rural areas throughout the United States. The experience was a frontline, face to face encounter with the challenges, poverty, and exploitation faced by marginalized and underestimated people. It was also a demonstration of the kindness, generosity, and creativity needed to combat injustice, racism, and systemic change barriers.   

John’s lived experiences inform his work on strengthening and developing the next generation of social change leaders. He uses decades of private and nonprofit sector experience, practice, and theory to design coaching, consulting, and experiential curriculum for working with socially conscious change agents and their sponsors. His work took on greater significance in 2016 when he began working with frontline healthcare staff throughout the United States to implement evidence-based group care for closing health care disparities between white and BIPOC populations. Bringing best practices for social impact and change continues with Black Health New Mexico, blogs, and new collaborations to address racism and economic inequality. 

Personal
John lives with his wife and life partner Nydia in Rochester, NY, where they are part of a large extended family. Life joys are spending time with my adult daughter, nieces, nephews, grandnieces/nephews, and friends.