References Client Case Studies White Papers Great Quotes Blog

PRINTER-FRIENDLY

Helixx provides a "SWAT team" approach to addressing the dreams, fears and "living large" objectives of our clients. Following are selected Case Summaries relating to Helixx engagements presently in process. Additional Case Study documentation can be provided on request.

Ricardo Valencia / ZAMAS HOLDINGS LLC

Ricardo Lopez Valencia is a nationally recognized leader because of his passion for helping others. He is a widely recognized champion of the potential of people and uses his platform to inspire others to make the most of what they are given.

Today, Valencia runs ZAMAS HOLDINGS LLC, his family company which includes a successful consulting business and serves as an incubator for new entrepreneurial ventures. When identifying the name of his family business, Valencia simply chose the first letter of each of his three children's names: "Z","M" and "S". Unbeknownst to him at the time, ZAMAS is actually a word of Mayan origin which means "new beginnings"; appropriate for the direction Valencia's moral compass was pointing.

Ricardo is among a handful of Hispanics who are seated on boards of publicly traded companies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Ambassadors Group (NASDAQ: EPAX) where he is seated on the compensation and nominating committees.

His most recent corporate role was serving as the Senior Vice President of ING U.S. Financial Services. The highest ranking Hispanic at ING USFS, he was responsible for the development of financial wealth development programs targeting the nation's diversity segments. He left his post in June 2007 to spend more time with his family and focus on being a husband and father first.

Born in Marana, Arizona, a small farming community outside Tucson, he is the son of a migrant farm working family. His grandparents were also migrant farm workers in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. In addition to working the fields, Ricardo's father, Ray, was a laborer for three decades in the copper mines of San Manuel and cement factories. His mother, Amada, was one of the first female deputy sheriffs of Pima County. She required Ricardo to work in the fields so he would be rooted in his family's history.

A product of, and therefore an advocate of public education and career and technical education, he became the first Hispanic president of Arizona's Future Farmers of America (FFA) in 1983. The post also helped him secure a scholarship to California Polytechnic State University where he earned degrees in agricultural business. He then started a nonprofit organization right after college to fund educational opportunities for children of migrant farm workers. He returned to Arizona and served as the Director of Professional Development for career and technical education. Ricardo was recruited to be the Executive Director of the National FFA Alumni Association, an opportunity that enabled him to give back to an organization that enriched his youth. He continued his work in education when he became the Director of Education for USA Today, where he helped make K-12 outreach a major initiative for the nation's newspaper. All along Valencia held his mission of improving lives close at heart, as he made contacts and built a reputation.

Valencia is currently on the board of the West Ed, a national nonprofit education research, development, and service agency and the Children's Action Alliance, an Arizona based advocacy movement. He has held numerous national board positions on the National PTA Board, National 4-H Board, the National FFA Foundation Board, the White House Millennium Youth Initiative and the U.S. Department of Education's Partnership for Family Involvement, the New York Hispanic Ballet and the Women's President's Organization.

Valencia has completed Harvard Executive Leadership Programs including certification for non-profit board development. Ricardo currently resides in Phoenix with his wife Lisa, their 7 year-old son, Zacarias Alejandro, and 4 year-old twins, Maximo Antonio and Sofia Victoria.

He has retained The Helixx Group to help him launch a number of properties including a media property called Chispas, to form his family foundation, and to assist him in implementing other aspects of his lifework strategy.

05 January 2009