My Journey at Ocaquatics
I started working at Ocaquatics on December 3, 2015. It was my daughter, Mishel, who encouraged me to apply for a cleaning position.
But before I tell that part of my story, I would like to briefly share where I come from and a little about who I am.
I am originally from Venezuela. On September 26, 2003, my wife, our two daughters—who were eight and six years old at the time—and I arrived in the United States. We made the difficult decision to leave our country as we began to witness increasing political instability and a weakening of its democratic institutions.
Coming to the United States meant starting over.
Before immigrating, I had spent more than ten years as a successful sales executive and entrepreneur, specializing in raw materials for the metalworking industry. Through that experience, I developed extensive knowledge of alloys, commercial steel production, and different manufacturing processes within the steel industry.
But immigration changed everything.
Like so many immigrants, I had to reinvent myself. From the moment we arrived, I began looking for work and learning how to become part of a new society. I had to adapt to a multicultural environment, understand a different culture, and learn how to build a new life while deeply missing the family and friends we had left behind.
I worked extremely hard and took on many different kinds of jobs. For years, I worked seven days a week, sometimes as many as 18 hours a day, doing whatever was necessary to provide for my family.
Along the way, almost without realizing it, I began developing skills in repairing and maintaining things—from fixing a wall to repairing a tool or working on a vehicle. Every job became an opportunity to learn something new.
Supporting my family had to be my priority, and because of that responsibility, I did not have the opportunity to attend school to formally learn and improve my English. Instead, I learned the language through everyday life and from the people around me—while working as a waiter on weekends, loading cargo containers, and doing many other jobs.
The years passed with their ups and downs. I continued learning different trades and developing new skills, but throughout that time I was searching for something very important to me: the stability of a steady job.
That brings me to 2015.
At that time, because I still did not have stable employment, I was working two jobs. In the mornings, I processed cooked corn to make dough for Colombian empanadas, working out of the kitchen of a family home. In the afternoons, I prepared and delivered pizzas for a major pizza chain.
I had already been told that the family was going to close the corn-dough business.
By then, my daughters were teenagers. They understood responsibility and sacrifice. Both of them were working, as was my wife, and they knew how concerned I was about losing one of my jobs.
Eventually, that day came. The corn-dough business closed, and I was left with only my job preparing and delivering pizzas.
It was during that period that Mishel encouraged me to apply at Ocaquatics.
And that decision changed the direction of my professional life.
When I arrived at Ocaquatics, there were only three locations. From my very first day, a group of people made me feel at home. I started by cleaning all three locations, but little by little, new opportunities began to appear.
Mr. Miguel Barranco started placing his trust in me and giving me opportunities to perform maintenance work. I remember very clearly that Miguel Barranco and Chris Garcia were among the people who taught and guided me as I learned, while Ms. Miren continued to trust me and gave me opportunities to grow.
I made mistakes while I was learning.
I made mistakes on some of the tasks that were assigned to me.
But they never stopped believing in me or trusting that I could learn, improve, and become better at what I was doing.
As time passed, I continued gaining knowledge and experience, particularly in the pump rooms at each location. At the same time, I began applying the skills and abilities I had developed throughout my life to the general maintenance of each school.
My responsibilities continued to grow—from replacing light fixtures to performing plumbing repairs, from painting the entire interiors of our locations to repairing restroom doors and handling many other maintenance needs.
Little by little, I found myself doing less cleaning and more maintenance work.
But I have never forgotten something very important: none of this would have happened if people had not believed in me. None of it would have happened if I had not been given the opportunity to demonstrate what I was capable of doing.
Eventually, I was given the opportunity to become a Maintenance Supervisor and to lead the maintenance and cleaning team.
The people who have led Ocaquatics throughout the years, as well as those who lead it today, have believed in me and trusted me. That is something for which I will always be grateful.
They gave me the opportunity to grow, and they continue giving me the opportunity to keep growing.
Over the years, I have also had to take on other responsibilities in my personal life, and perhaps at times those responsibilities have limited how quickly I could continue my professional growth. Even so, I continue giving Ocaquatics the best of myself while receiving something equally valuable in return: respect, trust, and the opportunity to continue growing.
After almost eleven years, I can only continue to say thank you.
And as I put this part of my professional life into words, I would like to leave something with whoever may read my story.
There will be difficult moments in life when we may feel weak. There will be moments when the road ahead seems uncertain. But there are also people who, sometimes without us even realizing it, help hold us up during those moments.
We simply have to learn to recognize them.
For me, Ocaquatics has been one of those places.
It gave me an opportunity when I needed one. It gave me the chance to learn, to make mistakes, to improve, to demonstrate my abilities, to lead, and to continue growing.
And that is what Ocaquatics has meant in my life.