Candidate Bio
Originally from East Los Angeles, Guillermo attended Stevenson Jr High and Garfield High schools. After high school he started at Rio Hondo College before transferring to the University of California at Davis where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science-Public Service.
Guillermo began his career as an investigator for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division where he led task forces targeting worker exploitation in the garment, restaurant, construction, and agricultural industries. This included aiding victims of human/sex trafficking and child labor.
While at the Department of Labor, Guillermo was elected to serve as Southern California VP for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) local 2391 and was appointed as Regional Collective Bargaining Committee Chair. In that capacity he represented all Department of Labor employees in the western United States, Guam, and Saipan.
Guillermo returned to school in 2009 and earned a Master of Science in Public Administration and graduated with honors from Cal State LA. After completing his studies, he was recruited by a Fortune 500 company to lead their Wage and Hour compliance program in California. He currently works as a Human Resources executive for a Private Equity firm.
Guillermo has been a strong advocate for community development in the city and has lobbied the City Council and elected officials to focus on expanding the tax base to increase city revenues. He was the mayor’s appointee to the Citizen’s Oversight Committee overseeing Measure PG Funds and was instrumental in creating a process which set aside funds to explore the creation of PBIDS. He also coauthored an ordinance that would have created code enforcement rules to hold property owners accountable for maintaining their properties in the city.
In his spare time Guillermo has volunteered for Pomona Heritage and is a lifetime member of the Pomona Historical Society. During the holiday season he works with Pomona Unified School District and organizes volunteers to adopt families in need. Over the past 3 years more than one-thousand family members have been adopted by this program.
Guillermo and his wife, Tamara have been married for 20 years and have resided in the Lincoln Park area with their two children since 2011.