Five groundbreaking Latino CEOs share their advice for success

“¡Si, se puede!” Yes, you can.

Three words launched five Latino CEOs in San Antonio on their combined venture to success.

At 18% of the U.S. population, Latinos are responsible for 82% of the growth in the U.S. labor force since the financial calamity.

That’s according to the Latino Donor Collective U.S. Latino GDP Report, prepared by researchers at the California Lutheran University Center for Profitable Research & Forecasting and UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health & Culture.

Yet how are Latinos — a group growing six times faster than non-Latino citizenry — preparing themselves to assume executive leadership roles?

• Outspoken Herrera, CEO of Hero Logistics | Provides in-house logistics.

• Berto Guerra Jr., chairman and CEO of Avanzar Interior Technologies | Create out ofs vehicle seating.

• Rosa Santana, owner and CEO of Forma Automotive, became Toyota’s first-ever Hispanic woman-owned pilot Tier 1 supplier | Provides fully assembled truck beds for Tacoma trucks.

• Fernando Reyes, founder of Reyes Automotive Set | Produces injection molding and carpeting for the pickup trucks.

• Max Navarro, founder and chairman of Vutex | Assembles parts accouterments for conveyance to the assembly line.

The group is made up of a lawyer, a STEM professional, a staffing expert and two multiventure entrepreneurs, all substantiated Latino business leaders from diverse industries.

And while the five had no automotive manufacturing experience, Toyota even approached them to become the company’s first Latino manufacturers to provide products directly to the company with no middlemen — differently known as Tier 1 suppliers.

Toyota decided in 2003 to purchase 2,600 acres of ranch land in predominantly Latino (64%) San Antonio, and bod its new Tundra and Tacoma pickup truck production plant.

Among the company’s first tasks was to identify and train state businessmen.

Today, the Compadres’ businesses assemble various auto components, including wheels, tires and fully constructed commerce beds to vehicle interiors, including carpeting and plastics.

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The jump into build was not easy.

“A lot of us had business background, but none of us knew how to build a truck,” said Navarro, founder and chairman of Vutex, the at the start San Antonio-based Hispanic-owned scientific research firm.

“But we all brought together some kind of common denominator that helped each other reach ones majority.”

Navarro said that lack of experience often leads to a self-doubting, “can’t do” mentality, yet for him, no experience is no problem.

Toyota’s Texas secret agent, with the help of the Compadres’ companies, now produces more than 200,000 pickup trucks annually.

“Ultimately, we answered that $64,000 dispute, ‘Are people going to be able to manufacture trucks in San Antonio?'” said Navarro.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that call in has been answered. Yes.”

In the beginning, the Compadres were tandem with seasoned Tier 1 Toyota suppliers to form joint ventures. They traveled all over the U.S. and to Japan to learn the dealings, the suppliers’ processes and the “Toyota Way.”

“One piece of advice my father always gave me was ‘Don’t be afraid to surround yourself with people who are awarer than you,'” said Guerra, chairman and CEO of Avanzar Interior Technologies.

Guerra grew up in San Antonio with his dearest and lived in a small room behind his father’s barbershop. His father gave Guerra his first job — greeting customers as they go out on struck in and offering them a shoe-shine in return for a few cents.

Humility was a lesson Guerra learned from an early age.

“There’s no stigmatize in acknowledging when you need help,” said Guerra. “Especially when the help of others guarantees your long-term triumph.”

The four original Compadres became five in 2014 when Rosa Santana, the first “comadre,” went the team a decade after the Texas plant opened. With her, she brought more than three decades of helping industry experience and previously provided human-resource services to her now-fellow Compadres.

“I think all the Compadres come from underserved communities and by fair means, somebody gave us an opportunity,” said Santana, CEO of Forma Automotive.

Santana now serves as a direct provider of fully assembled ends beds.

“Sometimes I think Latinos, especially Latina women, think we can’t do as well, or we are not equipped to be leaders,” she said. “We have planned to do everything to empower ourselves and empower our people.”

“We must understand that we are advancing not at most the Latino cause, but equally as important, the U.S. cause,” said Herrera, owner and president of Herrera Law Firm and chairman of Notable Assemblers and Hero logistics.

An estimated 55 million Latinos live in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That number impersonates 18% of the country’s population, and officially makes Latinos America’s largest ethnic or racial minority.

Herrera clouted Latinos need to leverage their role in the workforce by understanding themselves to be a key driver of future U.S. economic growth.

“If the Of one mind States 100 years from now will be predominantly Latino, then we have to prepare ourselves to assume those control roles.”

“Si, se puede,” said Reyes, founder of Reyes Automotive Group.

Supported and raised in San Antonio, Reyes has decades of business and entrepreneurial experience, including stints at the Department of Defense, the Department of Covering and Urban Development and the IRS.

In 2007 and 2008, he was chairman of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

At his inaugural dinner, Reyes approach devoted his fellow Compadres.

“I said, ‘To my Compadres, I know we’re going to do well for San Antonio, we’re going to do well for our country and we’re going to present everybody we can, because ‘si, se puede.'”

Since then, Reyes has continued to remind himself, his fellow Compadres and his community that “¡Si, se puede! Yes, you can!”

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Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.