Craft Talks
The latest of Craft Talks came to us from Sam Espinoza and Raul Lopez. These talks were more than Craft Talks but an insight of the personal side of these two Rotarians.
by Lorine Parks
Who’s the tallest member of our club? If you guessed Sam Espinoza, you’d be right.
At six feet six inches, he was the outstanding player on the Bell High School basketball team, and led them to the only Basketball Championship in Bell history. A 1997 headline read, “LA City Division 3A Player of the Year Sam Espinoza is a dominant force both inside and outside.”
Craft talks were the program for the day, and Sam regaled us with his achievements. He began by saying proudly, “I am Hispanic.” Born in Hollywood, in 1979, he is the youngest of four brothers. His mother, Ana Espinoza, came here from Durango, Mexico.
Because of basketball, Sam says “I was able to achieve great things.” He graduated as the John Wooden Award winner and earned a scholarship to California State University Los Angeles. But a tear in his anterior collateral ligament slowed him down, and he had to take time off to work prior to returning to his junior year in college.
Graduating from college with a B.S. in Kinesiology/ Exercise Science, he was General Manager at Bally Total Fitness from 2000 – 2003. Then he started at Country Wide Financial in 2003 as a loan officer. After Bank of America took over in 2008, he decided to move to Chase Bank, where he worked for four years in Arcadia, CA. Now at Bank of the West for 2 years as a mortgage banker, he also owns another business, Contemporary Suits. Married to Vanessa, he has three children. No reports yet on how tall they are, but we can expect great things.
Our Past President Raul Lopez gave our second Craft Talk. Born in Cuba, Raul took a roundabout way of leaving there for a better life. First he went to Spain and cut sugar cane there for three years, then immigrated to the United States. He was married at that time and had three children.
We don’t usually think of Spain as a sugar-producing country, but caña de azúcar, or sugar cane, was introduced to Europe by the Moors after they invaded Spain in 710. Then in 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried sugar cane seedlings to the New World, reversing the original direction of Raul’s odyssey.
After leaving Spain and coming to America Raul started selling real estate, but eventually became an insurance broker. He began in life insurance but switched to commercial insurance, and built his own company. He stated a second family when he married Arlene, and “had a wonderful kid,” our member Alex. Raul has twelve grandchildren, including twins, courtesy of Alex and Jenette, and two great-grandchildren.
He has gone back to Cuba, to visit his mother, and Raul says that times have changed. People who emigrate from Cuba now don’t do it for political reasons. They come just because they want a better economic life.
“I want to say,” Raul told us, “that I am proud to be a member of this club.” Raul was rocketed prematurely into the Presidency in 1994, because the President-Elect, Linda Lorenz Rogers, unexpectedly had to resign just days before she was to assume the presidency, “due to business problems.”
The past presidents of this club conferred, as to whether one of the past presidents with experience ought to assume the presidency, since Raul never had the chance to go to PETS (president-elect) training. But everyone had confidence that Raul could do the job well, and he did, even if it meant there was no immediate past president to give him advice and support as he went along.
One of the lasting achievements of Raul’s year as president was the establishment of the 10K Winner’s Night as a major fund-raiser activity for the club. Next week’s event will be the 21st running of this exciting evening, and son Alex is chairing the occasion.
Raul says he has tried to learn to speak English better, “but it didn’t work.” Don’t lose your accent, Raul, it’s part of your charm.
