¡Colores!; 1403; Notable New Mexican 2003: Ed L. Romero

You This is a story of a small town boy who makes it big. Ed Romero came to New Mexico from the San Luis Valley in Colorado. He started a small business that became a multi-million dollar environmental venture and has used his success to enrich the lives of the young people of New Mexico. Ed Romero is a man who lived halfway around the world, serving as ambassador to Spain and Andorra. He has built bridges of understanding between New Mexico, Spain and Andorra

and calls kings and presidents his friends. This is the story of Ed Romero, a man who sat with royalty, but never forgot his humble beginnings. In the small town of Alamosa, Colorado. What's only when you get older do you realize what culture is, why you grew up as you grew up. Early on I appreciated the fact that I could speak Spanish as well as I could. Spanish was really my first language. I learned English at the second grade. In school he was called by his middle name, Leroy. I was sort of assistant to the assistant to the assistant football coach and I got to see you were pretty long.

You could hurt that kid. And when the brain was over, who was at the bottom? He knew everybody and everybody knew him. He was happy-go-lucky all the time. And then since he played the piano, well everybody can't resist it. Like to listen to him play the piano. A specific type of music like Gunas Valeses, Shotistas, played by strings, mandalins, guitars, and piledins. You grew up on that and you just realized later on how beautiful that music was. Your games, well I used to play various games that were unknown outside of our volume. And consequently the only influence that we really had was, as far as I'm concerned, and going to pose that influence, that supportive influence that we had in, in rather all the volume that I grew up in, in Alamosa. We knew there was a distinct difference, but the difference didn't really hit me. Until after I left, so we called that one.

But early on Ed understood the importance of knowing his history, of knowing his heritage. The culture of New Mexico was very rich, was enriched really by your early pioneers. Alamosa Colorado is primarily an agricultural community. When I was about 11, 12 years old, we had a neighbor that would take a crew out in the mornings, come back in the evening, he would take him to pick peas, or let us what have you. So I asked him to ask my father if I could go for them with them for just one day. I came home with a handful of quarters, and I was so happy to have those quarters. I enjoyed those days, it was a beautiful, wonderful day, it was migrant days. That was the beginning of writing my own pay tricks, so to speak. Ed decided to enlist in the military during the Korean War.

It was his first time away from his family, and his insular community. Here you're throwing in with a people of a lot of different cultures, and the dominant one, of course, was the Anglo-Culture. And this is why I really got an education in terms of realizing that there were histories and cultures that were distinctly, completely different than mine. And wonderful cultures, and with different than mine. I think the start of my breaking away from this isolated, supportive, wonderful culture that I grew up in. After his stand in the military, Ed continued his education by attending college in California. During my college days, I was working until midnight two o'clock in the morning in a machine shop on Peacework. You know, how many gadgets you turned out, you got paid on. And I read an ad in the paper stating or saying that you could make a thousand dollars a month. That is a month working three and four hours a day.

It sounded pretty good. I answered that ad, and there was an encyclopedia ad. And I'd never seen a picture before in my life. But now I heard one, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. But Ed was really about to fall hook, line, and sinker for a girl from the little town of Algolone, New Mexico. Ed and I met at a friend's house. We were introduced, and we had a very good time. Then her sister came over, and so they asked us if we wanted to go try out the new car. I made sure that I sat next to that tentacle. I was just overtaken by this beautiful woman that I saw. The following day, he called me, and he said, I'd like to go out with you. And I said fine, so we made a time and date, and going out to dinner, we had dinner. And he was very, very truthful.

I had one problem, and that I was engaged at the time. But notwithstanding that, I just wanted to see more of this particular, particular, wonderful girl. So I called her the following day, and asked her, she wouldn't go out with me. She said no. I called her again, we called her. Finally, she relented, and we went on a date. I was looking at her, and I realized that this particular person I was in love with. And he laughed for Christmas vacation. While he was gone, the boy I had been dating that was going to school in Sarasota 4 and I came back with an engagement ring. And of course, you know, I was just not ready to accept the ring. And I got to my brothers. I kept talking about this wonderful one that I had met by a little name of Kay Athena. And he said, you're very much in love, aren't you? And I said, is that what it is? And she said, absolutely, you're very much in love. I knew I was. So anyhow, the next day, my fiance was no more in love than I was.

So we both could be me, didn't we? Two days later, Ed calls me, and I thought he was calling from California. And he said, I've got to see you, and I said, yeah, where are you? He said, I'm here in Albuquerque. And I said, oh, okay. He said, I've got to see you. That evening, he said to me, over dinner. Well, I want you to know. He said that I think I am falling in love with you. And when you fall in love with me, we're going to get married. I started laughing, and I just thought it was a very funny thing that this fellow, who I had dated just several times, was being so presumptuous that I would fall in love with him in real. And that's all history, because a year later in October, we were married. And I think he's still giving me orders. As Ed and Cayetana started raising their family, Ed realized that as the commission salesman,

he would spend a great deal of time away from them. He wanted to be closer to home. So we started solar America. And after a few years, solar America became advanced sciences and environmental engineering company. From days of it being a consulting company, a two-person operation of my wife and I, we built the two 680 employees. We built it to revenues of about $70 billion a year. So it was a very successful company. When you ask if it was beyond my wildest dreams, I really can't say that, because I always had the hope and the expectations of the dream of being successful in my own business. As Ed's business was booming, he wanted to give back to his community. His memories of his mother's service in the Democratic Party inspired him. I remember my mother's activity and realized just how important politics was.

And I was inspired by the philosophies of various politicians. I was inspired by John F. Kennedy. I was inspired by Johnson and what he did to implement Kennedy's programs. What inspired Ed was that he saw that these men were addressing the needs of the less fortunate, and quite often the less fortunate were minorities. Being Bernalillo County Chairman was the real beginning of Ed's involvement in national politics. I became a member of this, a member of that, and I was able to die with President Carter. I was able to die after that with President Clinton. I got to know them on a personal basis. The stories Ed had heard his entire life from his father and grandfather came to life as the boy from Alamosa became ambassador.

Growing up as a child, my grandfather would talk about Spain. But he never had been to Spain. His grandfather had never been to Spain. His grandfather had never been to Spain. But yet my grandfather, my grandfather, would talk about Spain. When you were, we came from. My first step to Spain was an experience I never forget. I started thinking of the fact that 400 years ago our families left this country. And they went across the ocean and here, 400 years later, we are coming back. And I was very emotional to say the least. A few days later they arrived for me to go up as a mercredenzo city king at the palace. On the trip there, I had a long flashback on my childhood.

As I thought about it was my grandfather. He would say about Spain, my father, how proud he would be. I like to think about it as a hub problem. I was. I just said this, the sense of what we were as we say. Prior to that, it was a different sense of what I had before. This was, I was proud of me. When I heard my national anthem being played, being miscorded to present my credentials to the king, I just got extremely emotional to your strength to give it all my eyes. And the protocol officer said, see the next to me, this pattern, me, on my knee. And anyhow, I was able to compose myself, fortunately, after a viable job of presenting our credentials to the king.

But it was a wonderful, beautiful moment in my life. Ed Romero is officially the first Hispanic in history to serve as US ambassador to Spain. It also had the honor of serving as ambassador to Andorra, a small but proud principality on the border between France and Spain. Ed's connection from the old world to the new goes back 400 years when his ancestor Bartolomero Mero arrived in New Mexico from Spain in 1598. In 1999, Antonio Mancheno, the mayor of Ed's Spanish ancestral home, Corral de Almaguer, honored Ed and his family by naming a town plaza after him. While serving in Spain, the Romero's entertained people from all over the world at the US Embassy. When we walked in, I was stunned by how beautifully the family had decorated the head set up the house.

And it was like walking into a museum, actually. And it was. The Albuquerque Museum, loaned ambassadors Romero several pieces of art by New Mexico artists. Their hope was not only to provide beautiful art that would live with Romero's while they were in Spain, surrounding them with the landscape and culture of New Mexico, but also to introduce visitors to the embassy with a stunning and unique art of New Mexico. Ambassadors Romero also sought to reinvigorate New Mexico's historic ties to Spain by establishing institutional links that would far outlast his tenure in Madrid. A very high-level link was made possible by a generous gift from Iberdrola, a major Spanish energy company. Iberdrola funded the Prince of Asturias and Dow Chair in Information, Science and Technology at the University of New Mexico, named in honor of the heir to the Spanish throne. When Ed first arrived in Madrid, he handed the cultural affairs officer of the embassy a list, a list of priorities of things he wanted to accomplish as ambassador.

One of those things was to establish an endowed chair at the University of New Mexico. So Ed approached Iberdrola about funding the chair, and initially the president, Inigo de Oriol, agreed that he would help Ed and fund part of the chair. And Ed jokingly told him, well, no, I wouldn't want to insult you by asking you only to fund part of the chair. I want you to do the whole thing. And they had a laugh about it, but of course, Ed was serious that he wanted Iberdrola to be the sole funder of the chair. Well, the very next day, Ed had word that Iberdrola had agreed to fund the entire endowment for this chair. Back in New Mexico, the seeds planted by Ed Romero Blossom and New Mexicans prospered. The Chamber of Commerce was formed. I think a lot of out of frustration that these small business people were not necessarily been taking care of, especially the Hispanic businesses. Good afternoon, Albuquerque, final chamber.

There was a number of individuals led by Ed Romero to start his final Chamber of Commerce. Today, this final Chamber here in Albuquerque is one of the largest in the country, has received many national awards for its performance as serving this small business community. The National Hispanic Cultural Center had been a dream of many New Mexicans for years. Ed Romero helped make that dream a reality. But perhaps Ed Romero's greatest legacy will be the work he has done to help the children and Hispanic youth of New Mexico. Ed Romero's philanthropic work has been wide. He believes that every child should have the opportunity to be who he or she wants to be. And that takes a lot of help many times from a lot of us. And I think that deep commitment that he has to make sure that every child has that opportunity has been great.

Real success is about family, how they were raised, how they raised their kids. Success to me is, did I raise my children properly, did I give them a good example as a mother, Ed as a father, yes. And they are doing that just that for themselves and for their children. And so I think that our children are definitely successful. Again, it's not what they have or what they hope to have, but they will see in the eyes of their children what we see in the eyes of our children. And your heritage, your history, and... I've committed myself to tell children to tell youth to tell others just how wonderful it is to be who they are, just how great it is for them to have the sense of pride and appreciation of who they are.

And I think that once they get to the point of realizing who they are, and it is how wonderful it is to be who they are, they will have a lot more success in keeping their kids in school. They'll have a lot more success in business, they'll have a lot more success in their future. My sense of pride I hope is being passed on to others. Thank you very much.