Hildy Carrillo, executive director of the Calexico Chamber of Commerce, shows some of the artwork that is such a critical part of her life.

To walk into the office of Calexico Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Hildy Carrillo is to instantly recognize all that matters to her from the photographs of her family, including her new granddaughter, to the stacks of materials for the city’s annual Mariachi Festival, to her own artwork, a dazzling display of various mediums that have become a form of release and expression.

That office is very much a microcosm of her life—a balance of roles that co-mingle in a way that is both business like and eclectic but always with an eye toward what is best for the city, the chamber, family, friends and the culture she holds dear.

As a chamber executive, she is in charge of marketing local business and building, maintaining and serving

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Pictured from left to right are Kay Day Pricola, executive director of the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association, Linsey Dale, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau, and Cherie Watte, executive director of Imperial Valley Water (IVH2O), photographed by a wagon used in the early days of farming.

Individually, the executive directors of the Imperial Valley’s three leading agricultural organizations advocate for the farmers they represent to ensure their interests are represented at all levels of government—local, state and federal.

Together, they represent a voice for the Valley’s agricultural industry—the industry upon which the Valley was founded, that to this day continues to drive the local economy as a billion dollar catalyst for growth, and that has faced an unprecedented period of change under the tenets of the nation’s largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer and the difficult realities of an ongoing drought.

The executive directors this article refers to are Linsey

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Luis Olmedo Velez is pictured in front of the office of Comite Civico Del Valle.

Luis Olmedo Velez knows what it is to feel disenfranchised.

Born in Mexicali, the son of a farmworker, his family moved to the Imperial Valley in the ’70s when he was a young boy and lived in tiny farmworker housing with outdoor communal showers. His family—poor but proud.

Life brought challenges. In Mexicali he thrived in school. Once living in the Valley, he had to start over. Learn English. Adapt to a new school. New culture. It would take time but eventually he would find his path and his voice.

Today, he draws from his past as he serves as executive director of the community-based organization, Comite Civico Del Valle, a nonprofit advocacy organization founded by his father, Jose Velez, in 1987. Through Comite Civico, he is giving voice to the disenfranchised on critical issues impacting their

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