Our people |

Danny Vargas, Chair
President, VARcom Solutions, LLC

Raul “Danny” Vargas is a noted business and community leader, accomplished media commentator, and marketing/public relations professional. A product of the mean streets of New York City, he has created opportunities, overcome challenges and beaten the odds all his life. He has made a mark not only in business but in the community as well. Danny is a proud US Air Force intelligence veteran, serving seven years on active duty.

Danny is the Founder and President of VARCom Solutions, a nationally- recognized, award-winning marketing communications, technology and management consulting firm. He is a regular media commentator in both English and Spanish, appearing on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Univision, Telemundo, and many more and has penned op-eds for Wall Street Journal, NBC and others.

A proven corporate executive, Danny was an executive at AOL, France Telecom, Global One and Raytheon. He was appointed by Virginia’s Governor to chair the Virginia Board of Workforce Development to ensure the future economic vitality of the commonwealth. He served as Chairman of the Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce (the first Hispanic to chair a mainstream chamber in Virginia history) and sits on the board of the Northern Virginia Chamber.

Active in politics and the community, he was a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, was one of the top races in 2015 and was endorsed by the Washington Post where they called him “one of the region’s more impressive first-time candidates for the House of Delegates in recent memory.” He was appointed by Congress to a commission studying the creation of an American Latino Museum within the Smithsonian Institution and chairs a nonprofit group advancing this museum effort and has served on boards of various other nonprofit groups. He serves on a commission to study and promote economic opportunities for struggling families in Virginia.

Danny has advocated for commonsense solutions for a variety of causes—workforce development, veterans support, economic development, health IT and more. A sought-after public speaker, Mr. Vargas is committed to keeping his community and our nation vibrant, thriving and strong.

Luis R. Cancel
Artist, arts administrator, and distinguished public servant

Harvard University – Master of Arts in Public Administration, 1990
New York University – Master of Arts in Art Administration, 1987
Pratt Institute – Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1975

Luis R. Cancel – artist, arts administrator, and distinguished public servant has a distinguished 30- year career as the head of various not-for-profit and public agencies. Until recently he served as the Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of San Francisco, appointed to that position by Mayor Gavin Newsom in January 2008. In that capacity, he oversaw the San Francisco Arts Commission (www.sfartscommission.org) until July 2011 when he resigned after Mayor Newsom was elected Lt. Governor of California. While serving in San Francisco, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Mr. Cancel to the National Museum of the American Latino Commission (2009-2011), established by Congress and the President to study the potential creation of such a museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution.

From 2005 until December 2007 he was Executive Director of the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in New York City, where he raised $14.04 million in capital renovation grants. He has served as an independent curator and consultant in the areas of institutional development and strategic planning for various foundations and government agencies (see ECC below). In 2009, he became a founding member of Rio Cidade Criativa (Rio Creative City www.cidadecriativa.org/en/), a decade-long initiative based in Rio de Janeiro to foment the arts and community development in the city that is being impacted by hosting the World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016).

Formerly, Mr. Cancel was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/home/home.shtml). Appointed by Mayor David N. Dinkins in December 1991, Mr. Cancel became the first Latino ever to hold that position as the fifth Commissioner in the agency's history. During his tenure (1991-1994), he worked closely with Mayor Dinkins to raise the level of city support for the arts and sciences, increasing the agency's operating support budget from $69 million to $89 million, making it the nation's third largest public agency supporting arts and culture. In addition, Mr. Cancel oversaw the Capital Improvements budget of $100 million. As Commissioner, Mr. Cancel worked with leaders from all of the arts disciplines to document the economic contributions of the arts to New York City's economy.

In 1978 he was named Executive Director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts. He was the youngest Museum Director and the only Latino in the country to direct a county museum. During his tenure (1978-1991), he was responsible for the Bronx Museum becoming one of the most respected and innovative cultural institutions in New York City. He guided the Museum's expansion from the Bronx County Courthouse to a 42,000 square feet (3,902 square meters) permanent building and successfully oversaw a $6.5 million capital campaign and renovation project. Under Mr. Cancel’s direction, the Bronx Museum subsequently developed a master plan for a second physical plant expansion of $22 million and Mr. Cancel secured municipal capital support of $18.75 million for that project.

While Directing the Bronx Museum, Mr. Cancel received a Museum Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to research Latin American art. He traveled extensively throughout Latin America and established important contacts for the Museum with major collectors, galleries and museums. He also curated several major exhibitions including: the First, Second and Third Emerging Expressions Biennials: The Artists and the Computer; Devastation/Resurrection: The South Bronx; Krishna Reddy, a Retrospective; and the highly acclaimed Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970.

The Bronx Museum received extensive national and local media coverage for its exhibitions and public programs. Mr. Cancel has conducted numerous print and broadcast interviews on a wide variety of topics and has been featured as the cover story for the Sunday Arts and Leisure Section of The New York Times (September 25, 1988).

He was President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Council for the Arts (ACA is now known as the Americans for the Arts), having been appointed to that post in April of 1994. ACA was a national membership organization, founded in 1960, whose mission then and now is to promote public policies that advance and document the contributions of the arts and artists to American life. During his tenure, Mr. Cancel helped ACA to focus its activities and become an arts information provider. In 1994 he conceived and established ACA’s pioneering Internet Web site, ArtsUSATM (www.artsusa.org).

Mr. Cancel has maintained an active consulting practice via Entrepreneurial Cultural Consulting (ECC), which he originally founded in 1995 as Esperanto Internet Services (EIS) to facilitate network communication between individuals of diverse nations and cultures. EIS positioned itself to benefit from the growing need to translate information over the Internet. This information technology company provided multilingual, Web site design; quality translations in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish; and proofreading services. EIS assisted clients with the design and development of those multi-lingual Web sites and EIS sold its domain name www.esperanto.com to the International Esperanto Society in 2007.

Since then, Mr. Cancel has used ECC to undertake selective cultural consulting projects involving strategic planning, fund raising and institutional development for numerous clients including The Rockefeller Foundation, The US-Mexico Fund for Culture and in 1998 he conducted a feasibility study for the establishment of a Museum of the Americas for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC. Other consulting clients include: Thor Equities (NYC); Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo); the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Fundación Eugenio Mendoza (Caracas), The Quipus Cultural Foundation (La Paz), Lord Cultural Resources (Toronto), The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Salt Lake County Center for the Arts (Utah).

As a member of the Smithsonian Council (1990-1997), he headed up a review of the Smithsonian Institution’s publishing and electronic projects. As a consultant, he conducted a feasibility study for the establishment of a Museum of the Americas for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC. In 1999, he was a consultant to The Rockefeller Foundation, assigned by the Foundation to provide technical assistance to Latin American arts groups.

Mr. Cancel has been a guest lecturer at several prestigious national and international museums and universities including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, The Aspen Institute, and Central University of Caracas. He has maintained an active interest in both the arts and sciences and he has been at the forefront of urging cultural organizations to utilize the Internet and New Media to reach new audiences. He hosted a weekly 2-hour Internet radio Podcast, Loisaida Cultural Wire, on www.eastvillageradio.com, and in San Francisco, he establish and co-hosted CultureWire, a weekly cable TV and Internet-based television program. (www.sfartscommission.org/category/video/)

Mr. Cancel entered Pratt Institute in 1970, where he studied painting and printmaking with a minor in Anthropology. After earning his B.F.A. from Pratt in 1975, Mr. Cancel received a study fellowship from the American Friends Service Committee to research 20th Century Puerto Rican Art. When this research ended, he became the Gallery Director of the Cayman Gallery, the first Latin American art gallery in SoHo, New York. During his 1975-1977 tenure, Mr. Cancel began his continuing affiliation with most of the major Hispanic cultural institutions, including Taller Boricua, El Museo del Barrio, and The Mexican Museum (San Francisco and Chicago).

In 1987 he received a Master of Arts degree in Museum Management/Arts Administration from New York University. During the 1989-1990 academic year, he went on an academic sabbatical from the Bronx Museum, and in 1990, received his second Master of Arts degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Mr. Cancel also studied educational software design and interactive CD-ROM production at the Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Visit Luis's website www.LuisCancel.com

Massey Villarreal
CEO and President
Precision Task Group

Massey Villarreal is CEO and President of Precision Task Group, Inc., (PTG), a Hispanic-owned and managed computer-consulting firm providing data processing solutions to public and private sector firms.

Mr. Villarreal has a long and outstanding history as an advocate of Hispanic businesses. While serving on the Board of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce (TAMACC). After his service in TAMACC, Mr. Villarreal served as the Chairman of the Board of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC). He later returned to our Chamber and served as Chairman of the Board of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce from 2000 - 2001. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and was recently reelected to serve an additional 3-year term, and is the President of the board of directors of the Mexican American Legislative Foundation (Texas). In October 2002, Hispanic Business Magazine named Massey Villarreal as one of the one hundred most influential Hispanics in the United States. In gratitude for his service to the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and his advocacy of Hispanic businesses at the local, state and national levels, Mr. Villarreal was elected as Chairman Emeritus of the Chamber, an honor he received during the Triunfando! Gala in 2004.

At the national level, Mr. Villarreal has also served as Chairman of the Board for the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA); was named National Hispanic Vice-Chairman of the Bush/Cheney for President Campaign and Deputy Vice Chairman of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia PA in 2000; serves as a member of the National Steering Committee for the Viva Bush Campaign.

At the State of Texas level, Mr. Villarreal was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve as presiding officer (Chairman) of the governing board of the Texas Department of Economic Development (TxEd) with a term expiring at the pleasure of the Governor. Mr. Villarreal led a successful transition of the agency to the Governor’s office, effective September 1, 2003. On September 23, 2003, Governor Rick Perry announced a new $5 million marketing campaign – Texas One – to continue the state’s recent string of successful job creation efforts led by Mr. Villarreal. This effort will assist public and private efforts to promote the state’s excellent business climate, skilled workforce, strong education system and convenient access to emerging markets. Mr. Villarreal also serves on the e-Texas Commission, which undertakes issues related to transportation (appointed by the State of Texas Comptroller, Carole Keeton Rylander). Mr. Villarreal has also served on the Board of Regents of the Texas State University System, which is composed of nine university components throughout Texas (a six-year appointment by former Governor George W. Bush).

Mr. Villarreal also serves on the boards of the Greater Houston Partnership, JP Morgan Chase Bank Advisory Board, Bio Houston, Houston Technology Center, Latin American Management Association (LAMA), San Jacinto Museum of History and Houston Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Mr. Villarreal is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M -Corpus Christi (formerly Corpus Christi State University).

Brent A. Wilkes
President & Founder
Wilkes Strategies

Brent A. Wilkes is the National Executive Director for the League of United Latin American Citizens this country's largest and oldest Hispanic organization. Wilkes manages the operations of the LULAC National organization with primary focus on national policy and legislative advocacy, membership development, program development, and resource development.

A graduate of Dartmouth College in 1988, Wilkes majored in Government and Philosophy and studied Spanish in Morelia, Mexico. He has worked in various capacities for LULAC since 1988 including Special Projects Coordinator, Resource Developer, and Director of Policy & Development. He went to work for the LULAC National Office in 1996 and assumed the newly created position of National Executive Director in April of 1997.

As the LULAC National Executive Director, Wilkes is working hard to improve the quality of life for Hispanic Americans by guiding LULAC on its way to becoming a million-member organization with extensive legislative, public policy, and service activities in Hispanic communities throughout the United States.

Wilkes is widely credited with strengthening LULAC's programs, advocacy efforts, staffing, events and revenue since opening LULAC's National Office in Washington, DC in 1996. Since that time LULAC's revenue has tripled, staffing has grown from one to over twenty and the organization has taken a leadership role on key issues affecting Latinos in Washington and throughout the country.

In 2004, Wilkes helped launch the LULAC Leadership Initiative to strengthen LULAC's programs and serves at the grass-roots level. The initiative has already resulted in the establishment of 23 community technology centers, 26 housing counseling programs and 10 middle school science programs.

Wilkes currently serves as chair of the civil rights committee of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda a nonpartisan coalition of the major Hispanic national organizations which develops a consensus policy agenda and promotes public awareness of the principal issues facing Latinos. He is also an active board member of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility which advocates for the inclusion of Hispanics in corporate America at a level commensurate with Hispanic economic contributions.

As a LULAC spokesperson, Wilkes frequently is quoted in national newspapers and publications and has appeared on radio and television shows including CNN, CSPAN and Fox News. A recipient of numerous acknowledgements and awards, he is most proud of his LULAC Youth Advocate of the Year award presented in 2003.

Brent and his wife are proud parents of two boys.

Cid Wilson
President & CEO
Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility

Cid Wilson was named the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility’s (HACR) President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2014, bringing more than 20 years of corporate finance and Wall Street equity research experience. Managing a staff of talented and dedicated professionals and working closely with corporate board members, Hispanic organizations, and corporate partners around the country, Wilson directs programs and initiatives aimed at encouraging Fortune 500 companies to include Hispanics in the areas of employment, procurement, philanthropy, and governance.

As the public face of the organization, Wilson promotes HACR through speaking engagements, traditional media sources and outreach to organizations and employee resource groups who share HACR’s mission. His ease in communicating within the C-level suite of major U.S. corporations presents a unique advantage in creating new partnerships, as well as strengthening relationships with existing corporate members.

Wilson has been featured and quoted in numerous publications and by news media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Bloomberg TV and in February 2004, he was featured on the cover of Black Enterprise Magazine.

In September 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Wilson to the National Museum of the American Latino Study Commission that proposed to the President and Congress construction of a new Smithsonian Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He was named board chair of the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino in 2012 and continues to lead advocacy efforts aimed at sustaining Congressional support for the museum’s completion.

Graduating from The Ohio State University with a degree in economics, Wilson launched his career in 1994 and was steadily promoted from the mail room to the executive suite, earning national recognition as the #1 Specialty Retail Analyst by Forbes in 2006. His leadership in the corporate sector also included previous service on the Ethnic Advisory Board for PepsiCo, Inc., and the Consumer Advisory Board for Verizon Communications.

A proud Dominican American, with Bergen County, NJ roots, his interest in serving the community has been exemplified through board membership with leading minority advocacy groups, including LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund), the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and Dominicans on Wall Street. He is the former national president of the Dominican American National Roundtable (DANR), former vice chairman of the board of trustees for Bergen Community College, a former trustee ambassador to the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, a former member of the Association of Community College Trustees’ (ACCT) National Board of Directors, and a Gold Life Member of the NAACP.

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