Gloria Rivera, fourth from left, stands with the current Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors and management staff as she is inducted into IID’s Gallery of Distinguished Employees on Nov. 21. Rivera, who retired in 2019, worked 47 years for IID, as an executive assistant to the general manager and Board secretary.

When Gloria River was a 10-year-old girl growing up in the Mexican border city of Mexicali, her mother told her they would be moving across the border to the Imperial Valley where her father worked on a ranch.

Rivera cried at the news. She didn’t want to leave her friends to start a new life in the United States, but what that child didn’t know was the positive path her life would take, and the sense of fulfillment it would bring her.

Eventually, at the age of 19, Rivera would join the Imperial Irrigation District

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