Latino Entrepreneurs To Students: Ask Questions, Be Ready For Anything

HARTFORD — Leticia Colon de Mejias gave a swift rundown of her life in the Bulkeley High School auditorium Thursday.

"I'm a mother of six children, I own four companies, last year I made over a million dollars and I'm under 40 years old," said Colon, who founded Energy Efficiencies Solutions, a Windsor energy conservation firm, four years ago with a $25,000 loan.

The longer version? It involved seeing every job as an opportunity, researching ideas and being ready for anything, she told students. "None of the doors will open until you start asking the questions," she said.

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The Best And Worst Cities For Hispanic Entrepreneurs

Hispanics and Latinos now make up the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. By 2050 they will constitute a third of the country’s population, according to census figures and their impact in business continues to grow. Latinos today account for more than 70,000 of the country’s CEOs and the number of Hispanic entrepreneurs has tripled over the past twenty years – surging from around 557,000 in 1992 to over two million in 2012, according to a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy.

Together, they brought in an estimated $486 billion in revenue, says the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

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Springs Resident Honored As Stony Brook Hispanic Entrepreneur of the Year

A small-town boy from Palmas, Ecuador, Luis Heras felt he could accomplish big things, but staying in Ecuador, and pursuing electrical engineering as he had planned, didn’t appeal to him as much as making it on his own abroad. So he moved to the United States in hopes of something more.

Now, 20 years later, he owns his own fuel company, Heras Fuel Oil Corporation in East Hampton—and was just named Hispanic Entrepreneur of the Year by Stony Brook University’s Small Business Development Center

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40 Top Latinos in American Media

This has been a really great year for Latino talent in American media. But before we get into the details of a year in Latino media excellence, I want to first share how this list comes together every year.

Methodology 
Like most media events in digital times this list of top latino talent begins on Twitter. Friends, fans, family, and especially colleagues of excellent Latinos in media recommend them to @vato, me. I add all of the recommended Twitter handles to a private Twitter List that I build and monitor throughout the year in Tweetdeck.  I have created a Collection in Tweetdeck for storing specific top Latino tweets for embedding  throughout next year's list, just as I have Alberto Ciurana's mighty tweet below.

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