Joe Baca
Joe Baca was born in Belen, New Mexico and is the youngest of 15 children in a house where little English was spoken. Joe worked shinning shoes at a age of 10. He graduated from Barstow High School and later worked as a laborer for Santa Fe Railroad, before serving in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper with the 101st and 82nd Airborne Division from 1966-68. Following his military service, Joe earned his Associate's Degree from Barstow Community College in 1970, and his Bachelor's Degree from California State University Los Angeles in 1971. He worked as a Counselor at UCLA and SER Jobs for Progress, before moving on to the private sector with GTE/Verizon and owning his own business with his wife, Interstate World Travel.
He is married to Barbara Dominguez Baca and has four children, San Bernardino County Supervisor Joe Baca, Jr., Jeremy, Natalie and Jennifer Baca. He also has seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. While serving as a United State Congressman he worked with three United Presidents, President Bill Clinton, President George Bush, President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden, as a United State Senator and Vice President to Obama.
He entered politics in 1979 by becoming the First Hispanic elected to San Bernardino Community College District, as a Board of Trustee member until 1992. He then was elected to the State Assembly 1992, where he became the first Latino elected Speaker Pro Tempore of the State Assembly. After six years in the State Assembly , he was elected to the State Senate in 1998. During a special election in 1999, he was elected to serve as a member of the United State Congress, where he served for seven terms until 2013. He served on the House Agriculture Committee, member of the subcommittee on Nutrition and Horticulture and Subcommittee on Livestock Dairy and Poultry and member of the Financial Services Committee, where he was a member of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Natural Resource Committee and subcommittee on Power and Water. He was also elected Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in 2007-2008. While Chair he led efforts to beat back harmful anti-immigrant and English-only amendments, ensure that Hispanic and Native American Veterans were included in a PBS World War ll documentary, "The War", and secured record levels of funding for the following: Minority Serving Institutions of higher learning, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges. Throughout his career in public service, Joe has always strived to serve as a voice for the poor and disadvantaged.
He has secured over $154 million in appropriations for vital education, transportation, public safety, and health projects in the Inland Empire. He also brought in over $570 million in stimulus funds, more than all the other House members combined from the Inland Empire. For the City of Rialto he secured over $23, 632,000, for projects and millions of dollars for the Inland Empire. While Chair of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Joe secured record levels of funding for federal nutrition programs in the 2008 Farm Bill, which helped put food on the table for 46 million hungry Americans. He changed the name of Food Stamps to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and established EBT cards to reduce the stigma associated with food stamps. He held hearings that led to the decision by Attorney General Holden of the Pigford discrimination of decision against Black Farmers by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He introduced legislation that was signed into law by President Obama creating Native American Heritage Day Act. He voted against the Iraq War. He also voted to increase the funding for our veterans and to establish a new G.I. Bill for our veterans and the legislation to assist our veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He secured millions for perchlorate cleanup and water recycling in the Inland Empire. He fought for workers rights and voted against every Free Trade Agreement that came before Congress, that included Equal Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act to to help end the wage gap between men and women. He introduced legislation that allowed the transformation of Rialto Airport to what is now the Renaissance Development in the City of Rialto. Funding for the I-10 Riverside Avenue Interchange, the I-210 Pepper Interchange and expansion., the Rialto Metrolink Station, variety of projects for the Rialto Police Department, the Cancer Presumption legislation for Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters, POW/MIA recognition, special interest license plates to fund Breast Cancer Treatment Account.
While in Congress he was recognized as one of the most influential Hispanic Leaders in America for three years running by Latino Leaders Magazine . In addition he had a school named in his honor, Joe Baca Middle School in the Colton Unified School District. He received numerous awards for public service, including the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President's Achievement Award, the National Farmers Union Presidential Award for Leadership, the Walter Kaitz Foundation Diversity Advocate Award, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Coalition of Minority Employees Award of Excellence, USHLI Edward R. Roybal-Henry B Gonzalez Award for Excellence in Public Service and FMCRC Golden Eagle Award, A builder of Community and Country, TELACU "CREO" Award, and recently was inducted into the Congressional Baseball Hall of Fame. In November 2022 was elected to Rialto City Council and then elected Mayor November 2024 for the City of Rialto.
Partial listing of awards, recognition, legislation and accomplishment, while as a State Legislator and United State Congressman.
Paul Gutierrez
Paul Gutierrez, the 2024 Barstow Community College Exceptional Alumni honoree, is a columnist and multi-platform reporter for the Las Vegas Raiders.
Before joining Raiders.com last spring, the award-winning sports journalist worked for Sports Illustrated, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, CSNBayArea.com and ESPN.
Gutierrez, a former Baseball Writers’ Association of America San Francisco/Oakland chapter president, voted for the Baseball Hall of Fame from 2011 through 2023. He is also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America, serving as Las Vegas chapter chair from 2020-24, and previously voted for the Associated Press NFL Awards. In 2024, Gutierrez became a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Selection Committee. He is also a selector for the newly-established Hispanic Football Hall of Fame and is a longtime member of the California Chicano News Media Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Having played two seasons of baseball for the Vikings, Gutierrez graduated from BCC, where he wrote for the 'Collegiate' and 'Viking Press' campus papers, with an Associate in Arts degree in Humanities in 1991. Gutierrez, who also worked as a stringer for the Desert Dispatch, then transferred to UNLV, where he earned his Bachelor in Arts degree in communications, with an emphasis in print journalism. He is also a Freedom Forum Chips Quinn Scholar and a Sports Journalism Institute alum, interning at the Oakland Tribune and the Orange County Register.
Gutierrez has authored three books: Tommy Davis’ Tales from the Dodgers Dugout, 100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die and If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Raiders Sideline, Locker Room and Press Box with Lincoln Kennedy.
Gutierrez is an adjunct professor at UNLV, teaching sports reporting, as well as a lecturer at Sonoma State, where he advises the student newspaper, the Sonoma State Star.
His wife, Amy, is a social media reporter, producer, lecturer at Sonoma State and was a longtime reporter and ambassador for the San Francisco Giants, and they have two children, Zach and Grace.
Michael A. Olguin
A marketing and public relations veteran of 30-plus years, Michael A. Olguin serves as Founder and Chairman of Havas Formula, a national, award-winning agency headquartered in New York City. Olguin founded the firm in San Diego, California in 1992, as a national public relations boutique that has grown to over 250 employees across six US markets, including: New York, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Miami.
The agency maintains five distinctive brands – Havas Formula, the strategic public relations arm of the agency; Havas Street, the experiential and brand activation part of the agency; Havas Trust, the crisis communications arm of the agency; and Havas Attn., the digital and social arm of the agency. The fifth brand within the Formula family is Havas FORMULATIN, which is of particular significance because of Olguin being a Mexican American who always maintained the importance of his culture. This rang loudly in 2019 when the FORMULATIN, was named Hispanic Agency of the Year by the Hispanic Public Relations Association.
Olguin is the architect of the agency’s Be Brave marketing platform for both large heritage brands as well as young, early-stage brands looking to grow and make a name for themselves. Olguin’s holistic approach to brand-building operates from the outside in – identifying the brand’s target audience and developing creative plans to ensure they take notice and actually care. He challenges clients to think and act differently to stand out within the convoluted brand marketplace.
His leadership style is based upon his personal mantra of Heart, Hustle and Humility. He believes that empathy is a key component to leadership and that those who work the hardest will ultimately prevail. An innovative thinker who constantly challenges convention, Olguin is frequently featured as an industry expert in trade and business media outlets ranging from PRWeek and Ad Age to Entrepreneur and Inc., and as a sought-after speaker at major events including PRSA International Conference and Hispanicize.
Olguin’s experience of the course of his career is vast. He’s managed CPG brands like Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, Keurig Dr. Pepper, SC Johnson; Automotive brands such as JLR, Toyota; Early Stage food brands such as Justin’s, Spindrift, Siggi’s; Beer, Wine & Spirits brands such as Heineken USA, Beam Suntory, Joel Gott Wines, Newcastle Brown Ale, Tecate Beer; Technology brands such as Qualcomm, Cymer, KLA Tencor, LiveRamp; Consumer Technology brands such as Canon, Shure, Pioneer, Polk Audio, Sound United; Wireless Communications brands such as Nokia, Metro PCS, T-Mobile and Kyocera;
Olguin also lead Formula through its acquisition by publicly traded Havas, which was ultimately rolled-up under French-based brand Vivendi Worldwide. Through Olguin’s stewardship, the agency grew 3X and was considered one of the most successful acquisitions in Havas’ rich history.
Non-profit organizations have been an important part of Olguin’s history having served on the boards of The Wellness Community, a cancer support organization; ICAN, the interagency council on child abuse and neglect and Alzheimer’s Association of San Diego. Olguin received his Bachelor’s Degree from San Diego State University in Journalism with an emphasis in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing in 1987. Prior to that, Olguin attended Barstow Community College where he graduated with Honors in 1984.
