{"id":39675,"date":"2012-05-09T08:37:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T14:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=39675"},"modified":"2015-09-26T20:18:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T02:18:45","slug":"once-a-college-dropout-balderas-found-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/05\/once-a-college-dropout-balderas-found-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Once a college dropout, Balderas found success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hector<\/a>

Hector Balderas (Courtesy photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Hector Balderas was a college dropout working on an assembly line at 21. Like so many others who find their way out of poverty, his story is filled with people who challenged him and gave him hope for a better life.<\/h4>\n

This is the second of four profiles<\/a> of the U.S. Senate candidates that seek to tell the stories of who they are and what shaped them.<\/em><\/p>\n

At age 21, Hector Balderas<\/a> was a college dropout working the graveyard shift at a Motorola assembly plant in Albuquerque. He was in debt. He wanted a family. And he was tired of getting off work in the middle of the night and eating at Village Inn.<\/p>\n

At that critical juncture in his life, Balderas, now a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, decided to quit his job, move back to Las Vegas, N.M. and re-enroll at New Mexico Highlands University.<\/p>\n

Balderas was deficient in reading and writing. He had struggled during his first attempt at college and earned poor grades, he told NMPolitics.net. The second time he had to do remedial work and re-take courses.<\/p>\n

But he did the hard work, and from that point on, Balderas has been on a different path.<\/p>\n

He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Highlands. He went to law school in Albuquerque. He completed an internship at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. He was elected to represent his hometown of Wagon Mound and surrounding communities in the state House<\/a>. In 2006, he was elected state auditor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When he became auditor at age 33, Balderas was the youngest statewide Hispanic elected official in the nation. He was named one of the nation\u2019s most 100 influential Hispanics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a man who grew up in poverty in a rural town with a few more than 300 residents, such success may have been improbable. He claims in his new TV ad<\/a> to be the first person from Wagon Mound to become an attorney. Today he lives in Albuquerque with his wife and three children.<\/p>\n

Like so many others who find their way out of poverty, Balderas\u2019 story is filled with people who challenged him and gave him hope for a better life.<\/p>\n

\u2018Taking it to\u2019 college-bound students in chess<\/h3>\n

Balderas and his two younger siblings were raised by their mother, with the help of public housing and food stamps. Dessert was a can of peaches. A soda and bag of chips were a treat once or twice a month.<\/p>\n

He described his father, a Mexican national, as a \u201cvagabond\u201d who wasn\u2019t around much during his early years and \u201ctotally gave up on being a father influence\u201d when Balderas was 11 \u2013 though they now talk on the phone a few times a year.<\/p>\n

He said his grandfather on his mother\u2019s side was one of his early influences \u2013 a harder worker who was \u201coptimistic, resilient and humble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to share stories about people and moments that set him on a different trajectory, Balderas started with his seventh-grade science teacher, Mr. Padilla, who taught his students to play chess.<\/p>\n

The students were fine with that, thinking it was a way to get out of studying. It turned out the team from Wagon Mound was good. Balderas described them as \u201ca bunch of little Hispanics in a station wagon\u201d driving around Northern New Mexico and \u201creally taking it to\u201d college-bound students from St. Michael\u2019s in Santa Fe, St. Pius X in Albuquerque and Los Alamos.<\/p>\n

Wagon Mound won the state championship that year and went to nationals, which happened to be in Albuquerque. That instilled some confidence in Balderas and got his competitive juices flowing.<\/p>\n

A coach who helped buy shoes<\/h3>\n

A couple of years later, Balderas wanted to join the basketball team. But the shoes cost $65, and he knew his mom didn\u2019t have the money. Balderas described having \u201climited coping skills\u201d and giving up \u2013 an automatic reaction during his childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoverty is more than just\u2026\u201d Balderas said before trailing off for a moment. \u201cThere\u2019s an identity challenge with it. There\u2019s stigma. There\u2019s emotional insecurity. And then there\u2019s just isolationism, where you don\u2019t fit in in school and don\u2019t know where you fit in anywhere in the world. I battled that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came one of those amazing moments in Balderas\u2019 life. Coach Marquez bought the shoes for him and told him to repay the money in $5 monthly installments. That created \u201ca monthly anxiety\u201d for a teen who had little cash, and some shame that he needed the loan, but, Balderas said, \u201cI wanted to play so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Balderas made three successful payments, Coach Marquez canceled the remaining debt. And Balderas got to play basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds so clich\u00e9, but it really isn\u2019t. Basketball, the opportunity to compete, changed my life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was one of the first times where I socially felt like I was developing confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ride to Boys State<\/h3>\n

Soon thereafter, Mary Schutz, the school\u2019s principal, told Balderas he had been nominated to attend New Mexico Boys State<\/a>, a summer leadership and citizen program that teaches high school students about the importance of participating in government. He thanked her, then planned to drop the issue. His mother could not afford to send him to New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where the event was held that year.<\/p>\n

\"\u201c\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

But Schutz and her husband, whose son had also been nominated, offered to drive Balderas. So he went.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere I was in the dorms, realizing that it was quite an honor to go, and there were a lot of other talented students from all over the state,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cIt was then I started thinking I could go to college.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that point \u2013 he was 15 or 16 \u2013 Balderas said he had been a \u201cwelfare kid\u201d who wore hand-me-down clothes donated by the local Church of Christ. In a high school with only a few dozen students, \u201cthe kids know you\u2019re wearing their clothes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo being the food-stamp kid, it was very shameful those early teen years \u2013 but then I began to develop confidence from Boys State, playing basketball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Becoming a \u2018more reliable\u2019 worker<\/h3>\n

Life started to change after that. Balderas said he became a \u201cmore reliable\u201d worker and started getting jobs working on ranches around Wagon Mound and at the local gas station.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d give me $20 to unload a semi and buy me a burger, and I thought I won the lottery,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cThey noted they couldn\u2019t get that kind of work ethic out of their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing such praise, Balderas said, further built his confidence.<\/p>\n

Among the ranchers who employed him was Bill Seidman<\/a>, a former head of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington and an economic adviser to three Republican presidents.<\/p>\n

Balderas recalls talking with Seidman about what it was like to work for a president. And he realized he was having a conversation with someone who had been hugely successful \u2013 and that he, a teen from Wagon Mound, could have such conversations with successful people.<\/p>\n

Balderas called it \u201cOne of the first positive experiences that I had with someone in both government and business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018There are no throwaway schools\u2019<\/h3>\n

All of that set Balderas on a path to Highlands in Las Vegas, but he wasn\u2019t ready during his first attempt. So he ended up in Albuquerque working on an assembly line next to Evelyn, a mother who worked graveyard shifts so her daughter would never have to. One night, Evelyn challenged Balderas to go back to college.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that moment, I realized that I was not only letting Evelyn down, but that to honor my mother\u2019s and grandfather\u2019s struggles \u2013 and all the other people from Wagon Mound who believed in me \u2013 I needed to go back to college and make a substantial contribution to the community that did so much for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Balderas moved back to Las Vegas, got a job at a grocery store, and, the second time around, succeeded in college. Highlands, Balderas said, is a school with open enrollment that \u201cwill take you back if you flunk out,\u201d so some call it a \u201cthrowaway school.\u201d Growing up, he believed he was attending \u201cthrowaway schools,\u201d including Highlands.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not true, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no throwaway schools. Reputation is overrated,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cIf institutions convince students to make the most of it, you can have a wonderful education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balderas is determined to make less-prestigious K-12 schools and colleges better. He said that\u2019s why, when the auditor\u2019s office learned of potential embezzlement in the Jemez Mountain School District, he pushed so aggressively to get to the bottom of it.<\/p>\n

His office\u2019s 2009 audit uncovered more than $3 million<\/a> in embezzlement and helped lead to criminal charges.<\/p>\n

Balderas said \u201cbureaucrats\u201d had ignored complaints about financial mismanagement in the school district for years, and his desire to intervene stemmed from a deep belief that such schools can be better.<\/p>\n

Staking job performance on \u2018real outcomes\u2019<\/h3>\n

Balderas believes such waste, fraud and abuse is rampant in government, and speaks impatiently about politicians in Washington who battle over budget cuts and tax increases instead of addressing real problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s enough just to blame the other side any more,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that congressional leaders who are blaming the other side are serving the interests of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cited the recent corruption scandal in Sunland Park<\/a> and the fact that some residents of the tiny town of Columbus get their water through a spigot at city hall as consequences of ineffective government.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorruption and poverty are the unfortunate results,\u201d he said. \u201cThe citizen who is suffering is a victim of a lack of innovation and cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balderas promises to be a different U.S. senator \u2013 one who helps bring local, state and federal governments, and nonprofits, together to more efficiently and effectively build better communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a senator I feel a certain responsibility in oversight,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cThe highest-paid, most influential leaders in New Mexico should take responsibility for the lack of progress in some areas of New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few lawmakers are wiling to stake their job performance on real outcomes like the job rate, the poverty rate \u2013 and I\u2019m willing to do that as a U.S. senator,\u201d Balderas said, adding that, if he\u2019s elected and those numbers don\u2019t improve during his first term in office, \u201cthen I\u2019m willing to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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