By Camille Ogden, BA '06, Duck Career Network Program Coordinator
A short interview with Carmen Rubio:
“Value of community comes from my culture – we are highly relational. We rely on one another.”
When Carmen Rubio discusses the power of network, she isn’t referencing good business practices, she is speaking from the heart. For Carmen, cultivating an engaged community is her day job, but it is also her passion. As the Executive Director of the Latino Network in Portland, Oregon, Carmen leads a team of more than sixty driven professionals that serve over 1,000 youth and families throughout Multnomah County. The Latino Network’s mission is to “positively transform the lives of Latino youth, families, and communities.” To do this, Carmen and her team build programs that support literacy, education, leadership, and family. But first, they build relationships.
“The primary way I operate is through relationships. This is how we are most impactful for our families.”
MENTORSHIP & ADVICE
As a first generation college graduate and the granddaughter of migrant workers, Carmen’s own educational experience was encouraged by relationships – the first being a college advisor, Jim Garcia. Whether he knew it or not, Jim provided an “easy entryway” for Carmen’s integration into college life. Jim helped answer the questions Carmen was either “too afraid or too embarrassed” to ask. Through him, Carmen became involved with MEChA and ASUO.
Double majoring in Political Science and Ethnic Studies, Carmen was a busy student, but it was her active involvement with student groups, such as MEChA and ASUO, where her philosophy of relational networking began to take shape.
“We were learning hands-on social work and non-profit organization in a powerful way. Many of my friends became leaders within their communities. We may have connected in college but relationships expanded well beyond…”
Carmen’s experience with student groups significantly impacted her professional life and she has collaborated with many fellow UO grads that are now leaders throughout the state. Because she recognizes the substantial impact of the connections she made as a Duck, she wishes she “had been more involved with different groups” across campus. Her advice to students is to get involved and begin cultivating relationships now– you never know who might help you and how.
Through her continued service to the University of Oregon, Carmen connected with Sandi McDonough, who she credits as a major “role model, friend, and professional mentor” that has “opened doors” and fundamentally cares about the Latino community “having a place and a voice” at the table.
Now Carmen is a mentor.
Within her own staff, Carmen coaches and models relationship building so they can “help one another” manage their respective networks for a “deeper reach” with a lasting impact. With each new hire, Carmen emphasizes the importance of trust within relationship building and stresses the value of peer to peer networking. “For instance, administrative assistants make the work happen,” and these types of peer to peer groups are often “tight and help each other out. No relationship should be taken for granted.”
At the core of Carmen’s advice is this: always focus on the relationship. Nurture your network – through relationships. Cultivate support from others – through relationships. Build lateral relationships –because ultimately, “it takes individuals working together to move the agenda of a community forward.”
She is also a realist.
Just because you have a solid relationship with someone does not mean you will always agree. Her advice: “know how to bounce back from non-alignment.” Try not to “overly personalize” it. Like most things, Carmen sees “non-alignment” (i.e. disagreements) as a positive, “re-alignment is when it gets creative and rewarding” when we can rally “around commonality” and move forward. Carmen says, “…once you figure that out, you’ve mastered networking.”
LATINO NETWORK: strengthening the Latino engagement, influence, and community
It is creativity and community that fuel Carmen’s work. The best aspect of her current role is “the ability to be creative. To see a need in the community and then create a program, make a case for funding – be flexible and nimble and then see real results in real time.”
Though she speaks enthusiastically about the education and youth-based programs. There is a marked excitement in her voice when she starts talking about Unid@s for Oregon. Unid@s is an innovative leadership development program aimed at creating a strong network of Latino leaders and it’s making huge strides. Already, Unid@s is affecting change across the state by recruiting and investing leadership training in twenty Latino leaders each year. This fall, the program will launch its 5th cohort. What Carmen and her team are discovering is a strong connection between cohorts as well, “…they branch out and connect to other cohorts. It’s amazing,” says Carmen, “our leaders are hungry to connect on shared experiences.” Through Unid@s, the network of Latino leadership is growing and it’s all rooted in intentional relationships.
Once place Carmen will be recruiting leaders is at next year’s Diversity Career Symposium. “I was blown away,” says Carmen. “The sheer number of students of color is symbolic of the changing demographics of Oregon. It’s heartening to see these students graduating… it’s an incredible opportunity for organizations and employers.” She plans to look for ways the Latino Network can engage the symposium next year and continue to build a “leadership pipeline” and you guessed it – relationships with emerging student leaders.
TRUST
A pointed piece of advice Carmen offers is that relationships are built on trust. “The families in our community are going to trust us. Not the provider we refer. Us. I take the trust of our community very seriously... I am respectful of their trust.”
While her advice is applicable to career relationships it is grounded in human relationships.
To heed Carmen’s advice, perhaps we should ask less of our “networks” and more of the effort, care, respect, and trust we individually invest into the relationships within our communities.
Carmen currently serves on the boards of All Hands Raised, Oregon Latino Health Coalition, University of Oregon Alumni Association, and the State of Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission. She was a co-founding member of Emerge Oregon and JustPortland. Previously, she has served with Portland Housing Advisory Commission, Cradle to Career Executive Council, Miracle Theater Group, Oregon Latino Agenda for Action.
She is a fellow of the American Leadership Forum of Oregon, Robert Woods Johnson Ladders to Leadership, and the International Women’s Forum. She is a graduate of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber Leadership Program and the Latino Network Unid@s Leadership Cohort I. In 2012, she was recognized by Portland Monthly Magazine as one of Portland’s 50 Most Influential People. In 2013, Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber recognized her with a BRAVO Award for Leadership.
To learn more about Carmen and the work she and her team are doing at the Latino Network, check out these links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0_z15SZ3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ziT-zXIh4A
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/06/28/focus2.html
http://www.uoalumni.com/s/1540/uoaa/index.aspx?sid=1540&gid=3&pgid=1602