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“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Famously attributed to Marcus Aurelius, this a quote that Arturo Valenzuela reminds himself of often.
At Garland Independent School District (GISD), Valenzuela serves as executive director of finance for one of the largest public-school districts in Texas. Valenzuela leads the district’s finance department, working collaboratively with departments to allocate resources efficiently and transparently. The executive leader has also helped play a key role in paying down the district’s debt early, saving millions in interest payments on behalf of taxpayers in the process.
Valenzuela also helped coordinate Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) funds during the pandemic. Valenzuela designs and implements more efficient internal controls to improve the accuracy and reliability of the district’s financial data.
It’s a hell of an accomplishment for someone who went to community college to be a welder.
Valenzuela is the embodiment of the American Dream. He grew up across the border in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, near Presidio, Texas. His family was granted legal status and moved to the US, but his American citizenship application was denied due to missing an important cutoff for weeks. He was eventually able to secure his citizenship.
From the time they were children, Valenzuela and his brothers worked at his family’s grocery store, taking payments from customers with their heads barely above the counter, standing on a stool to reach the register. When Valenzuela moved to the States, he worked as a restaurant custodian but would also clean and work in the kitchen during rush hour. He’d work in the mornings and afternoons and take welding classes at a nearby community college in the evenings. Why welding?
“Practically everyone from my town who immigrated to the States did manual labor,” Valenzuela explains. “We prove ourselves through manual labor. You can maybe hope to own your own landscaping company at some point. But I started in welding.”
When needed, Valenzuela tapped into work in oil rigs and oil fields in Midland and Odessa, one of the “least unemployed areas in the world,” because of the availability of challenging labor jobs, but jobs nonetheless. All this time, Valenzuela says the aunts and uncles who housed him, giving him a chance to find a way, were instrumental to his future success.
“There have been so many people along the way who have helped me get where I am,” the executive says. “My aunts and uncles gave me a place to stay and gave me all they had. It gave me a chance to earn about a year-and-a-half of college tuition.”
Valenzuela mentions that the zip code in which a child grows up is more predictive of social mobility and economic fate than other national metrics. But in joining his cousin at the University of Texas at El Paso, the zip code that would define him wasn’t in Chihuahua, but at the school.
“There are mentors and friends and teachers and colleagues who continue to teach me new things. I have the blessing of so many people in my life who have helped me. I am trying to not let it all go to waste.”
Arturo Valenzuela
As a student he became a 21st Century Scholar, one of one hundred students chosen in a university with an enrollment of more than twenty-four thousand students. He was extremely active in student government and president of Beta Alpha Psi, as well as directing the group’s involvement in a tax assistance program for low-income families.
When he wasn’t at school, he was working at Walmart, first pushing carts, but eventually becoming a cash manager. He earned “employee of the month” twice. He did odd jobs, and once, while repairing air ducts underneath a mobile home, he wound up with a mean case of ticks.
“I didn’t think much of it,” Valenzuela says. I just saw so much promise and opportunity around me.
Valenzuela would go on to earn his master’s, and after early auditing experiences at Weaver, he’d get a chance to act as a controller and eventual executive director of finance at Midland Independent School District. He came to GISD in January 2024.
“There continued to be people willing to give me a chance,” Valenzuela says. “There was Carla Martin who hired me as a controller and showed me the ropes of working in a school district. There was Darrell Dodds who mentors me as a financial executive. There are mentors and friends and teachers and colleagues who continue to teach me new things. I have the blessing of so many people in my life who have helped me. I am trying to not let it all go to waste.”
In the most difficult times, Valenzuela has found great comfort in the authors of stoicism, the philosophy that emphasizes resilience, virtue, and the acceptance of challenges as opportunities to grow. The executive leader sees parallels in the hardships endured by his family, his relatives, and his ancestors. And he believes strongly that being a good man is its own reward.
Valenzuela often reflects on the lessons of his upbringing, recalling stories of his father and grandparents who worked tirelessly, faced discrimination, and yet maintained their dignity and optimism. For Valenzuela, strength is hidden in adversity; it’s a chance to shape virtue.
The husband and father of twins now hopes to be that foundation of inspiration for the next generation. He hopes their lives are easier, but he still wants his children to strive hard to be the best people they can be.
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