LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — We showed you last week one of the first Latino Leaders in Louisville Edgardo Mansilla. He runs the Americana Center (can you please link to this story here), providing a place for immigrants to integrate in Louisville. On this last day of Hispanic Heritage Month GMK's Juliana Valencia show us a younger Latino leader making big move in Lou – Ricky Santiago.
"Louisville is a great place to live but we could do better for the immigrant community, and I want to be part of that," Santiago said.
By day, Ricky Santiago is the Program Manager for the Metro Office of Globalization. By night, he's the assistant football coach at Iroquois high school-- a school made up of 60 percent ESL or English as a Second Language students.
"To me, that's something that caught my attention, because I also was an ESL student and I used football as a tool to get where I am today," Santiago said.
Ricky moved here from Puerto Rico in High School.
“That life changing event made things a little murky. I didn't really define myself as a professional until junior year of college,” Santiago said.
Now Ricky just turned 30, he went from college recruiter for Indiana Tech, focusing on immigrant recruits, to working for local government, helping Louisville's immigrant community achieve its full potential.
“The immigrant community provides not only an economic impact, but a workforce impact and it adds cultural diversity in the city, Santiago said.
He's helping people. Something he knew he wanted to do at a young age.
“At that time, I was thinking I was going to be a firefighter or a police officer… I just wanted to make my family proud I think,” Santiago said.
While he's been able to make his family and the Latino community proud he knows its comes with responsibility.
“There is no limit to what the community can do, and there's no limit to what we can achieve if we work together. If it's me that's got to break that ceiling so be it," Santiago said.
Santiago’s advice to high school students, Find something your passionate about. Money Feeds the pocket, but passion feeds the heart.
►Contact reporter Juliana Valencia at jvalencia@WHAS11.com. Follow her on Twitter (@NewsJValencia) and Facebook.