The Encuentros Leadership board is comprised of individuals committed to the mission of helping young Latino men in San Diego county maximize their potential. Each members brings years of leadership and experience from their respective fields and contributes to developing the organization.
Joaquin Aganza
Board member at large
Joaquin Aganza is a former bilingual school psychologist for Vista Unified School District and currently teaches in the graduate program for school psychology at San Diego State University. He is an advocate for culturally relevant curriculum and instruction and using cultural assets in the assessment for intervention with diverse children and youth. He helped initiate classes using the Encuentros curriculum in middle schools in Vista. These classes have been offered for the last 15 years dramatically enhancing GPA and reducing behavior referrals for those participating. He has been a board member of Encuentros Leadership since 2004.
David Espinoza
Treasurer
David first got involved with Encuentros Leadership in 2006 as a college student when he volunteered as a Team Leader at the Leadership Academy. He returned the next five summers in the same role and over the years stayed involved as a volunteer at different events. He has now been on the Board of Directors for five years.
David is a first-generation college student and attended Palomar college for his general education and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Development from California State University, San Marcos. He also completed a Master’s degree in Youth Development from Michigan State University. While earning his undergraduate degree, David began working in programs such as GEAR UP, Upward Bound, Encuentros Leadership and CAL-Soap. It was through his work in the field of education that David knew he had found his passion of helping others. For over 15 years David has worked in education and the non-profit sector where he can impact the life of youth in his community of North County San Diego.
His joy of helping youth achieve their academic and personal goals is dear to him because he did not have that type of support from similar programs when he was a youth. He currently works for Project SUPPORT in CSUSM’s School of Education as an Education Career Specialist. His work at CSUSM centers on identifying, recruiting and mentoring Latinx students to become K-12 teachers. Outside of work, David loves to spend time with his four-year old son David, two-year old daughter Isabella, one-year old daughter Sofia , his wife Alicia and his two dogs Xavi and Luna. The five of them like being outdoors and enjoy being out and about in the world. He enjoys reading books, lifting weights, soccer, and watching soccer and football on TV.
Dr. Juan Gaytan
Board Vice-chair
Juan first got involved with Encuentros Leadership when he attended their first ever Career Exploration Conference as a middle school student in 2003. He would eventually attend their Leadership Academy in 2008 and has since become a Team Leader at each subsequent summer academy and has also served on the Board of directors for a number of years.
Juan is a first-generation college student and he received his B.A. in Psychology from UC San Diego, his M.S. from San Diego State University in Counseling and is currently completing his PhD in Education.
His current research is on Latino male teachers and understanding why so few are motivated to pursue a career in teaching and why so many choose not to do so. This interest has led to the development of the curriculum for the Encuentros Teacher Academy and his position as the director of the academy. He hopes his curriculum and research helps develop retention and recruitment strategies to help diversify the teacher workforce.
Francisco Gonzalez
Board member at large
Francisco Gonzalez is an Escondido resident and proud husband and father of two young girls who are currently in college. He is a professional with twenty two years of comprehensive experience managing facilities, maintenance, design and construction projects ranging from small to large school campus developments. Francisco currently serves as the Director of Facilities, Operations & Maintenance at Cuyamaca Community College located in El Cajon, California. Francisco is a strong believer in improving and supporting the community by being involved in student educational programs and events that support young people. Francisco has been a board member of Encuentros Leadership for the past six years and has been participating in Encuentros Leadership events for the last ten years where his mission has been empowering and inspiring Latino boys to finish high school and pursue higher education.
Dr. Renzo Lara
Executive Director
Dr. Renzo Lara was born in San Diego, California and raised in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. At the age of 10, he moved with his mother to the United States and has called Chula Vista,California his home. Dr. Lara’s upbringing between the international border of Mexico and United States provided life experiences related to transborder identities. Additionally, Dr. Lara is a first generation college student and has overcome societal as well collegial barriers. Dr. Lara’s cultural upbringing and life experiences has led to his passion which lies in assisting Latin@/x students and family members achieve holistic success.
Dr. Lara transferred from Southwestern College and earned his B.A., M.A., and Ed.D. from San Diego State University. Dr. Lara has over a decade of experience in: educational programming, event planning, research and assessment, inclusive excellence curriculum design, multicultural community work and higher education collaborative partnership building. In addition, Dr. Lara is passionate about social justice advocacy and higher educational equity for underrepresented students and marginalized students of color. In his spare time, Dr. Lara likes to spend quality time with his three daughters and partner, enjoys watching soccer games,and loves to engage in dialogue related to the sci-fi genre or star wars.
Antonio Mora
Board Chair person
Antonio Mora is the District Advisor for the Assessment, Accountability, and Evaluation Department & the Multilingual Education and Global Achievement Department within the Learning and Leadership Services Division at the San Diego County Office of Education. He’s the Title III County Office of Education Regional English Learner Specialist for Region 9 (San Diego, Orange & Imperial Counties). He is a former a site administrator, district English Learner Resource Teacher, ELD Coordinator, middle school teacher and bilingual RSP teacher.
Tony as known by many, was born in Tijuana, Baja California Mexico. His family moved to Encinitas, California when he was 3 ½ years old. He attended public schools in the Encinitas Union Elementary and San Dieguito Union High School Districts. The oldest son of agriculture workers, Tony struggled with language barriers, but was able to graduate from high school.
Tony did not take a traditional direct route to the university. He attended community colleges and then transferred to the university. He attended CSU San Marcos for his undergraduate and graduate programs.
Tony has always been active in the community. He’s been a soccer coach in Vista. Tony was the administrator that piloted the first Encuentros program at Washington Middle School (Vista Unified) back in 2003. He eventually was selected to be on the Encuentros Board of Directors. Additionally, he’s a member for the Vista Community Clinic Board of Directors.
“It’s imperative that we give our youth the necessary tools and support in order for them to finish and graduate from high school and then move on to a technical school, community college or a four- year university. In the words of Cesar Chavez ‘¡Sí se puede!’ I challenge our community not look down on our youth who are struggling but to find ways they can help them. We must work together to decrease the high school dropout rate and increase the number of underrepresentative students in higher education.”
Dr. Wendy Ochoa
Board member at large
Wendy Ochoa (she/her/hers), Ph.D. is an educational researcher and Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Family Development at San Diego State University. Dr. Ochoa is deeply committed to promoting the wellbeing of ethnoracially minoritized young children from low-income households, particularly those who are identified as Latine. To that end, her research agenda involves two lines of interrelated inquiry that intentionally use strengths-based and culturally informed frameworks to: 1) understand how parents’ background characteristics, such as their socioeconomic status, language(s) they speak, race/ethnicity and gender, relate to their experiences raising their young children in the United States, and 2) examine the factors that relate to the bilingual language development and classroom engagement of Dual Language Learners (DLLs).
Dr. Ochoa earned her Ph.D. in Education with a focus on Human Development in Context from the University of California, Irvine. She then went on to receive postdoctoral training at the Human Development and Child Study Department of Tufts University. Dr. Ochoa is a proud daughter of Spanish-speaking, Mexican immigrant parents whose sacrifice, hard work, and knowledge afforded her the opportunity to be the first in the family to attend college. As a California State University of Los Angeles (CSULA) alumni and former EOP student, she is also committed to supporting students navigate and thrive in higher education institutions.
Encuentros Leadership 