- [Instructor] Funding for this episode of QUE PASA NJ with Carlos Medina has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825, Hackensack Meridian Health, ROI NJ Business Magazine, Wells Fargo Bank, the Alamo Insurance Group.

- Holla familia, welcome to the season finale of QUE PASA.

Thank you again for the support you've shown me all season and you're in for a treat.

We got some really great role models and storytellers for you today, including Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation Energy, Danny Vargas, CEO of the VARCom Corporation, Olga Abinader from Matrix New World, and Alberto Garofalo, from Bank of America.

Don't forget to ask yourself, ladies and gentlemen, QUE PASA.

(upbeat music) And our first guest is Joe Dominguez, the CEO of Constellation Energy.

Welcome QUE PASA, Joe.

- Thank you.

It's been long incoming.

We've been talking about doing this for a while, so glad to be here.

- New Jersey boy.

- Proud Jersey boy.

- Proud Jersey boy.

Went to NJIT and Rutgers Law.

Which law?

The Camden Campus?

- Yeah I went to Camden.

Yeah, I was living down there.

So went to NJIT mechanical engineer and then got the law degree sometime after.

- Engineer wasn't enough you had to go for a lawyers.

- Always chasing something.

Right.

- Tell me a little bit about your family's journey to the United States.

- So my parents came here in the early fifties pre Castro and my dad actually fought in Korea during a program that if you were willing to enlist in the Army, it was a fast track to citizenship and they stayed here, you know, working in factories in North Jersey.

Grew up here in Union City for a part of my life, still have all the family in Cuba except for my mom and dad who made it over here.

And it was pretty cool.

Just before Covid we went back to Cuba and did a big reunion.

First time seeing my aunts and uncles and cousins.

It was fabulous.

- Now you worked for a district attorney's office, Was that the first job outta law school?

- So when I came outta law school, I worked for a big law firm in Philadelphia and then I went back to the US attorney's office and did about five years as a federal prosecutor.

Got recruited back to the firm that I had left as a partner there and then was out shopping business and that's how I got hired down at Exelon.

So.

- So Exelon, then you went to ComEd out of Chicago.

- Right.

- Which is a very large subsidiary, I guess of Exelon.

- Yeah.

Largest subsidiary of Exelon.

For folks who don't know it, Exelon's the largest utility company in America has about 10 million customers.

Chicago is the biggest independent utility within Exelon and the third largest in the country.

So I ran that just before we split the company.

And what we did is we split the generation assets, which in our case is renewables, nuclear energy and some natural gas.

We split that apart, that became Constellation, which is the company I run now and the utilities remain behind under the Exelon banner.

- Now you were awarded with an award at the gala at the statewide Hispanic Chamber last year as a Latino trailblazer.

So very proud to have you in that regard.

But one thing that when you made remarks at the gala, you mentioned that the spend that you have, the diverse spend that you have implemented at the company, something I'm really proud of cuz it's something I fight for day and night here in New Jersey.

Tell me a little bit about how you were able to implement that and what were some of the secret sauce so I could share with the New Jersey CEOs.

- So what we were able to do is year over year increase the diverse spend and we got it to over 40% of our spend was with businesses owned by women and people of color.

And so for our business, because the capital budgets are so large, that amounted almost $3 billion a year in spend that we were plowing back into community communities that didn't always have those opportunities.

Okay.

In the energy industry.

So we're trying to create jobs and economic opportunities where they didn't exist before.

And look Carlos, there's no secret sauce to this.

You could kinda talk the talk, but people don't look at the words coming outta your mouth.

It's what you're doing with your feet, what you're doing to build relationships.

Sometimes you have to train some vendors up that you know could get there, and we had enormous success.

Not only were we increasing the diverse spend, but we were driving the performance of the company through the roof to the point where it became the best performing utility in America.

And those two things didn't come together by coincidence.

When you get that competition going in the supply chain, you bring in hungry people that want to do the work, magic happens, and it did for us.

- I get asked often, how do you find talent in today's very difficult marketplace?

I'm gonna ask you, I think I know the answer, but I'm gonna ask you, what has been your success?

I think it still plays on that diversity aspect, but how do you at Constellation recruit talent in the very difficult marketplace that we're in?

- I think coming to the country in an immigrant family gives you some perspective on how to be very inclusive in the workforce.

I think if you come in from an immigrant family, you always feel a little bit of a divide between you and folks that at least you perceive to be folks that are more kind of the normal than you.

And so you lean into that, you have to lean into it a little bit.

So for us with folks, it's not only just a recruitment but what you do with people mentorship and other things, once you get 'em through the door, if you show diverse folks the love, then they will show you the love back.

They'll stick with you through thick and thin and they'll be your best performers.

What would you tell young viewers that are pursuing, they're in college, they maybe have their first job and sometimes they feel frustrated.

And one of the reasons we have people like yourself is so they have role models to look up to.

Like I can be a CEO of a major, what is Constellation?

And if I gave, if I asked for a, are they Fortune 100 Constellation?

- We're Fortune 150 and since you opened the door.

(both chuckling) we're the second best performing company in America this year, we've doubled the stock price over our first year in operation, which is pretty incredible.

- So what would you tell these young, these young folks?

- I didn't, I can never imagine that I'd be sitting in this chair having the job I have when I was grown up.

I didn't even know this job existed.

Okay.

And so I think sometimes young folks think about the end of the journey as opposed to really valuing each step.

And so especially now where a lot of the opportunities are remote opportunities, you get to work for a company and you don't have to show up in the office every day, that's really cool.

But the flip side of that is building the interpersonal relationships you have to have to get true mentorship and sponsorship.

So if you're in that situation and you're lucky enough to be able to be in a hybrid work environment or be remote most of the time you're gonna have to figure out how to form those bonds in ways that, historically were easy cuz you were at the water cooler together.

But I think thinking about each step and if it's the customer, the owner of the company, whatever, have their interests in mind constantly.

Every job I had, I thought that I'd eventually, be running the company or run when I walked into a big law firm the first time I was the only Latino there, but I looked around at the grandfather clocks and all this stuff and I said, "Wow, I'm gonna own all this stuff someday."

(both chuckling) But just have that mentality of providing value to the customers, to the owners of the business.

Think about kind of the steps in your career and increments, making the best of those opportunities and actually assessing at the end of the year, hey, what I learn, what do I still need to learn?

And having that honest assessment and then tying back to the mentorship and developing those relationships, the money, everything else will take care of itself if you do just those things.

- Well thank you Joe.

It's been really a pleasure talking to you and great words of advice.

Thank you.

Thanks Carlos.

Love your show.

Love that we can make this happen.

- And up next we have Danny Vargas from VARCom Corporation.

(upbeat music) And now we have Danny Vargas, the CEO of VARCom Corporation.

Welcome to QUE PASA.

- Thank you Carlos.

Appreciate it.

- Tell me a little bit about your family's journey from Puerto Rico and I know you were born in Brooklyn.

- Born and raised in New York City.

I grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

My family's from Puerto Rico, my mother's from Arecibo, my father was from Ponce, they came to New York City and that's how we were raised.

I was the youngest of four kids, challenging environment, we grew up in in the welfare system, but I joined the Air Force at 17 as a way to get out of that environment and to serve my country.

- Thank you for your service.

- My honor.

- So tell me a little bit about VARCom.

What does your organization do?

- So I started VARCom Solutions in 2004 after having served in the military, and then I went on to corporate life.

I worked in Raytheon Corporation, worked for France Telecom, where I was the head of sales and marketing for the Western Hemisphere for them.

And I was a VP of global sales for AOL and then started my own company in 2004 as a way to be a more present Dad cause I was on the road 70% of the time.

So started the company in 2004 as a way to be able to serve medium sized companies and corporations, nonprofits and government agencies doing marketing, consulting, public relations services, strategic communications.

That's what we do for them.

But we also have lots of ways to be able to give back to the community.

- Tell me about your role with the Friends of the Latino Museum.

- So with the Latino Museum, that's an effort that I've been involved with for the last 15 years, a labor of love.

As you know, it was an effort that started in earnest in 1994 with the willful neglect report.

And then there was a commission that was formed as a result of legislation signed by President Bush to create a commission to study the feasibility of creating a national Latino museum.

I was appointed to that commission along with 22 other amazing people.

And the title we chose for our report was to illuminate the American story because we really do need to have a better understanding of the Latino contributions to the building, the shaping and the defending of America.

Well in the fall of 2011 was the first time that a bill was introduced in Congress to authorize the creation of this museum cuz you literally need an act of Congress to create the new Smithsonian Museum.

So that's when I joined the board of the Friends of the American Latino Museum became the chairman in December of 2016.

And after years of hard work we were finally able to get the bill passed in December of 2020 on my birthday, December 21st.

- Wow.

Wow.

That was a great present.

- Yeah.

- What can you briefly tell our viewers is the progress is, what's the next step with the museum?

- So I mean after we got the bill passed in December of 2020, there was an effort to make sure that we had an outstanding board of trustees and we have that now.

People like Emilio Estefan and Henry Munoz, Eva Longoria .

So that board of trustees was put in place.

I was on the search committee to find the first permanent executive director, we hired someone, a gentleman named Jorge Zamanillo that came from Miami, outstanding individual.

He started in May and now the fight is to get the a location on the National Mall.

And then the process begins over the next 10 years to build this incredible museum and to make sure that it's curated with the storytelling that's gonna be needed to tell the stories of 500 years of Latino contributions to this country.

In the meantime, in June, the Smithsonian opened a gallery in a corner of the American History Museum as a teaser trailer for what the museum could be, it's called the Molina Family Gallery.

And I invite everyone when they go to Washington DC to visit the Molina Gallery.

- And if you're not busy enough, you're also involved with a national veteran Hispanic chamber.

Tell me a little bit about that and what your role is for the organization.

- Sure.

So as a veteran myself, I knew that there weren't that many great Latino veteran non-profit organizations.

There are a few that are wonderful people, but also going around the country with the museum effort, I will always talk about Latino contributions to the military from the Revolutionary War to today.

And the reality is most people just aren't aware of those contributions.

Everything from General Galvez during the Revolutionary War, helping General Washington win the War of Independence to the first admiral to the United States Navy during the Civil War.

The guy who said, "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead."

David Fargate was actually David Farragut to Latino.

We created a nonprofit called the American Latino Veterans Association to make sure that we could help Latino veterans thrive and tell their indispensable stories.

- What would you tell some of our younger viewers, you're a role model, not sure who your role models were growing up, maybe you could share some of that.

Robert Lamento.

- Robert Lamento was one of them, yeah, absolutely.

I think, you know what I would tell people is that everyone can make a difference.

A single human being can change the world in areas that you love, that you care about.

You just have to dare to care and step up and find ways to make a difference.

And those that are really focused on making money and doing well in their careers, that's great.

You can do good at the same time.

You're doing well is my point.

- I applauded you for your servant leadership at the various organizations and thank you for joining QUE PASA.

- Totally agree.

Thank you so much Carlos.

- Yeah.

And up next we have Olga Abinader, from Matrix New World.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

And up next we have old Olga Abinader from Matrix Engineering.

Welcome to QUE PASA.

- Thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- Tell me a little bit about your family's journey from the Dominican Republic.

- Absolutely.

So back in the early 1990s, my family was experiencing much like many immigrants in the United States, this challenge in the Dominican Republic in terms of the economic downturn that was there.

So as a family we immigrated to the Boston area, to Massachusetts to really pursue a better life here to pursue academic opportunities and career opportunities.

And I remember coming to to JFK for the first time as a little girl, I must have been six or seven years old at the time.

And I told my father, (speaking in foreign language) So dad, I can't go to school in this country.

I can't speak English.

And I remember him looking at me and saying, Olga, you are going to shine.

We came here and we made a lot of sacrifices in order for you and your siblings to take full advantage of the opportunities that are available in the United States.

So you are gonna do great, you're gonna do great at school.

And that message really stuck with me in my journey in the United States.

- And you're an Ivy League graduate from Brown University?

- Yes, I am very proud of that.

And I studied architectural studies and urban studies as an undergrad there and I had a fantastic experience.

It was a wonderful school that really just opened many, many doors for me professionally.

- And tell me about your new role at Matrix Engineering, which is how we'll mention is a woman owned firm.

- That's right.

That's great.

And what brought me there was the strong female leadership.

Yeah.

So Matrix was founded in 1990.

It's a New Jersey based company, woman owned as you mentioned.

And it's an incredible company of scientists, engineers, and consultants who focus on the nation's most pressing climate issues, so for example, disaster recovery.

Once different governments have experienced something like the hurricanes that we're seeing in Florida, for example, at some point when the dust settles, they are looking to rebuild their infrastructure in a way that's resilient in a way that's going to really be able to face the future climate change and disasters that are unfortunately anticipated.

So that's where Matrix comes in and we help them with the engineering, the permitting really bolstering up the ecological restoration that's needed in order to come back stronger as a community.

And in addition, we work on renewable energy, clean energy such as offshore wind we support.

Lastly I mean there are many other disciplines that are covered at Matrix and my particular area of expertise is preparing and reviewing environmental impact statements.

Now these are documents that the governments and the municipalities require of developers who are pursuing, say land use projects or or other new initiatives.

So I help prepare these documents and also in doing that, these documents actually reveal the potential environmental concerns or impacts that these projects might have on the local community.

- Now your involvement in the Hispanic community starts all the way back from high school.

You were in involved in something called La Union Latina.

- La Union Latina.

Yes.

- Tell me a little about that.

Absolutely a wonderful organization founded in Salem, Massachusetts at Salem High School from Latino leaders who were really interested in celebrating our background, our culture, and Latino excellence in general.

So I was, I took on a leadership role in my high school in the union Union La Latina and that really gave me an opportunity to amplify both my story and my family story and it really inspired me to pursue more work engaging with our community in my professional life.

And that's been tremendously helpful.

- And before you joined Matrix, you were with City of New York?

- I was, yes.

- And you got a manager of the year award there also?

(both chuckling) - I did, I did in the city of New York.

It was just such a wonderful opportunity to really serve the public again, just thinking about those families, much like my own who came to the United States and wanted a new opportunity.

So when I became a manager, I made it a point to really elevate those others who were maybe starting off in their careers and in that same path as me and give them a chance to shine and to really do the greatest things that they could really accomplish.

- That's great.

That's very beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for being such a great role model and joining QUE PASA - Thank you so much.

- And up next from Bank of America we have Alberto Garofalo.

(upbeat music) Welcome back, our next guest is Alberto Garofalo.

Welcome to QUE PASA.

- Thank you.

It's great to be here Carlos.

- Tell me a little bit about your family's journey from Gua.

- In 1981 my dad came, came first we stayed behind cuz he needed to essentially just start working and establish right and get grounded.

We came, my mother, my brother and I in 1983, March 7th, 1983 to to New Jersey.

And we moved to our first place, our first apartment in western New 21966 Street.

I don't know if you remember, there was a car wash there called Martin Car Wash.

I lived across the street from there.

- Amazing.

- In Hudson County.

So that's how it all started.

- And you're a memorial tiger and I'm a St. Joe's Blue Jay.

- I know.

Hold I'm a guest today.

(both chuckling) - About 80 feet apart we went to high score right?

That's right.

Small world, right?

- It is a small world.

Yeah.

So you're president of the New Jersey Bank of America.

Tell me what that, what's your day to day like?

I know you have a lot on your plate.

- So in one capacity I work with our eight lines of businesses, all of our leaders that represent the entire company to really deliver the full breadth and scale of our company across the state of New Jersey to individuals, small businesses, institution, across all, we serve all of their needs and for our associates we have a workforce that they call New Jersey, both work and home over 10,000 associates.

And I work with those 10,000 associates in terms of development, diversity and inclusion initiatives, growth, retention, essentially their engagement, ensuring that this is a great place to work.

And third, which is one of the most, I think, important parts we get to work with great organizations like yours.

So we are responsible for deploying all of our philanthropy across the state of New Jersey.

We also help drive economic mobility initiatives across the state of New Jersey.

Working across the nonprofit sector, arts and culture and of course volunteerism.

So those 10,000 associates that we work with, we volunteer all over the state delivering essentially essential needs for the important work that many of our nonprofit organizations and organizations like yours are doing each and every single day.

- Is it fair to say, cuz I always argue for diversity at the top of organizations, right?

So now Bank of America's New Jersey president is Hispanic.

- Yeah.

- Ranked number one by ROINJ and the people and the color.

- It's an honor to be there alongside many, many great leaders.

- So I don't think that's a coincidence.

Now that you're president, I do see Bank of America taking a deeper dive into diversity, also doing studies such as the Latino Donor Collaborative.

Would you say there's some correlation between you and I know there's other states that do have diversity at Bank of America.

So I've seen a lot of activity at Bank of America with diversity and I've seen good strides in the community.

- I appreciate you bringing that up Carlos.

We have a longstanding history of our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Well before I even started in the company, which is now 19 years ago, as you know, it starts at the top.

We have one of the most diverse corporate boards out of any financial institution with two Hispanic and Latino board of Directors.

And our CEO personally chairs our global Diversity and Inclusion council.

He is committed and since the day I met him till the day I was asked to become the president for the state of New Jersey, he has been steadfast in that commitment to ensure that we are an organization where diversity and inclusion is alive, it thrives and it's a tangible commitment across every aspect of the organization.

Me having the privilege and honor to serve in this capacity is yet another example of that.

But there are many others across the country, also Hispanic and Latino, that are also serving in this capacity.

- That's great.

Tell me about your partnership with Liberty Science Center.

I know you have something called high Schools of the future that you're personally also passionate about.

Tell me a little bit about the program.

- Technology is everywhere and because technology is everywhere, the need for cyber security jobs are prevalent, more prevalent than probably than ever before.

So we at Bank of America understand that need and are leaning in and partnering with extraordinary organizations like the Liberty Science Center.

So we are partnering with Liberty Science Center and with two high schools in this particular case, to essentially give high school seniors an opportunity to directly get trained in the skills that we are going to be hiring for.

That's groundbreaking cuz what we're doing is we're giving students in these neighborhoods an alternate path.

- Tell me what you think are some of the reasons why Hispanics are knocking it outta the ballpark as far their spend and home ownership participation in the workforce.

They outpace every other ethnic group.

- You know, we as a Bank of America, have been catering and supporting our Hispanic and Latino businesses individuals for a long time.

And it starts with Bank of america.com in Espanol.

(speaking foreign language) We speak your language.

And that's a really important commitment that really aligns to what that GDP report ultimately talks about.

And I, my hope is through that partnership and through that visibility that others understand that it is the growth engine.

If you think about New Jersey, if you look at the Hispanic and Latino home ownership outpacing that of non-Hispanic Latinos and you talked about the GDP, When you combine the GDP power of the eight top states where we have Hispanic growth, it's larger than the GDP for Hawaii or some of the other states that, it's really a mathematical equation.

The data is there, we're younger if you think about the reproduction, they're growing faster and it is the future, and by the 2050, we're gonna be majority minority nation driven by the Hispanic and Latino cohort.

- Thank you for being with us and thanks for being a role model.

It's very important that we have people that, immigrant stories such as yours coming here from Cuba and rising to the top spot in Bank of America, New Jersey.

- It's an honor to be here.

Thank you for having me.

- And ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap not only of this episode but of season three.

Thank you so much for your support.

Please, please keep supporting us so we could have a season four.

And I have a tip for you.

There's a show on fifth Avenue in New York City called "The Encanto Experience" based on the Disney movie Encanto, which tells a beautiful story about a Columbian family.

And you'll be able to hear them sing, interact with the towns people, and even better, my daughter Madison Medina, who I'm very proud of, is part of the production.

So check it out.

Please keep supporting us so we could have a season four.

And don't forget to ask yourself, QUE PASA.

- [Instructor] Funding for this episode of QUE PASA NJ with Carlos Medina has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority, The engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825 Hackensack Meridian Health, ROI, NJ Business Magazine, Wells Fargo Bank, the Alamo Insurance Group.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.

(upbeat music)