The Founder's Story
Silver Spring to the
boardroom table
DMV · Since 2001
I arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, to family — the way so many of us do. You land somewhere new, you lean on the people who got there before you, and you figure out the rest as you go. I graduated from high school here, in this city that would become my home, without a clear plan for what came next. I was young, I was finding my way, and like most immigrants I was working hard without knowing exactly where the work was leading.
That moment of becoming a father sharpened everything. I needed stability, I needed growth, I needed to build something real. A few years later, in 2001, a shift in employment pointed me in a new direction — toward residential real estate. I took it. It was not the smoothest path. The market did not wait for you to feel ready. Clients did not care that English was your second language or that the industry had not been designed with someone like you in mind.
But I learned. I built. And over 24 years in real estate across the DMV, I discovered something important: the hardest problems I faced — navigating systems, finding the right contacts, earning trust, understanding how things really worked — those problems had already been solved by someone else. I just did not know who to call.
Empresarios Dinner Club exists so the next generation of Latino business owners in the DMV does not have to figure it all out alone. It is the room I needed in 1981. It is the table I wish I had in 2001. And it is the community I am proud to help build today.