Page 5 - Community Newsletter :: Spring 2021

GETTING TO KNOW
Councilwoman
Sylvia Marroquin
Sylvia Marroquin was recently elected as a City Council member and began serving the people of El Centro in December 2020. The experience and energy Sylvia has is considerable and enhances her primary goals to help make the City of El Centro a better place to live and do business.
“I was born in El Centro to parents Rafael (deceased) and Aurora Marroquin. I am a lifelong resident of El Centro and as a child I attended McKinley and Lincoln Elementary Schools, Wilson Junior High School and graduated from Central Union High School,” states Marroquin. Sylvia confessed that as a teen she was very shy and reserved. The thought of becoming involved in extra-curricular activities at school never crossed her mind. She said, “while in high school I was hired at J.C. Penney Department Store as a part-time employee, and continued working there until I graduated from high school and Imperial Valley College where I earned an associate degree in Business Supervision.”
Ambition for Sylvia started early in life and stayed with her through her college years spent at Imperial Valley College (IVC) and continues to this day. She states, “soon after
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graduation from IVC, I was hired at Valley First Federal Savings & Loan. That was the beginning of my banking career which spanned for 26 years at other savings & loans and credit unions in the Imperial Valley. Throughout my career I worked in many areas of bank operations and advanced into branch management and administration.” After banking, Sylvia was yearning to make a change and expand her education, “I earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and after completing my education, I transitioned to a career in economic development”, states Marroquin.
For the next five years she served as the Center Manager and Business Advisor at the Imperial Valley Small Business Development Center where she was very proud of the economic impact her team made in the Imperial County during that time. Unfortunately, the grant funding they depended on to operate the center was cut and her team was laid off. “As one door closed, another opened. The volunteer work that I had been involved with since 2010 for my church community led to my current job as the Business Manager at St. Mary’s School. I continue my volunteer activities on fundraising committees and operating the retail gift stores for the El Centro Catholic Community,” says Sylvia.
In 2005 she joined the Optimist Club of El Centro and remained a member until the disbandment of the club in 2020. Throughout that time, she served as club president for four consecutive terms and was very active in fireworks sales to raise funds to help support youth activities in our community. In 2014, she was named Optimist of the Year by the California South District.
Generally, people don’t wander into the political arena without some sort of motivation to do so. Sometimes the drive to be in politics starts from an early age, for others it’s a cause or a desire to help make a community a better place. For Marroquin, the call of politics came while working for the Small Business Development Center and making presentations to the city council. It was during one of those presentations she had her “aha” moment and knew she could serve her community in a city council member capacity because of the experience and confidence she gained working in the business profession for more than thirty years. “As a newly elected public servant, I feel honored that the residents of El Centro have entrusted me to be a member of the governing body that can make decisions that will impact our community and improve the quality of their lives,” states Councilwoman Marroquin.
Sylvia Marroquin seems to never stop learning or persevering forward to obtain her goals.
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