Juan L Maldonado

Background

Maldonado was born in Nueva Ciudad Guerrero in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, a small city opposite the Rio Grande from Falcon Heights, Texas. He moved to Laredo on January 3, 1950, at the age of thirteen months.

Maldonado is considered a native of Laredo because he was reared there in the historic Barrio Azteca. In 2009, Maldonado in an interview described how Laredo in its pioneer days developed out of necessity an independent spirit because of its remote location. Though the community was compelled to become self-sufficient, he noted how people from the early years of settlement became dependent on one another. This situation, he added, fostered an impressive community spirit.

Education

Maldonado attended the former Central Elementary School and in 1967 graduated from Martin High School, at which he was the co-captain of the "Tigers" football team, the senior class president, a member of the National Honor Society, and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed". In 2008, he was named a "Tiger Legend", along with several other alumni, including Andres Ramos, Jr., a former county judge for Webb County. As a Tiger Legend, Maldonado urged graduates to be "committed to what you want to achieve in life and help others. In helping others, you help your community [to] be a better place [in which] to live."

After completing high school, Maldonado attended Texas A&M University in College Station, at which he majored in Engineering and Business Administration. In 1970, he transferred from Texas A&M to the University of North Texas in Denton, from which in 1972 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology with a minor in Psychology. In 1975, he received a Master of Education degree in student services from the University of North Texas. In 1986, he was awarded a Ph.D. in child development (elementary education) from Texas Woman's University, also in Denton. In both of his graduate degrees, he carried minor studies in sociology. For his doctorate, he wrote the 276-page The Relationship of English Oral Language Proficiency, Cognitive Tempo, Locus of Control, and Specific Language Acquisition Factors of Mexican American Preschool Children.

Earlier positions

From 1973 to 1975, Maldonado was a social worker for the Mexican American College Education Fund, which had been established in 1970 to offer scholarships to Hispanic students entering college. From 1975 to 1996, he served in numerous capacities, including counselor and psychology instructor, at Tarrant County College, a community college in Fort Worth. From 1991 to 1996, he was the chairman of the Tarrant College Business and Sciences Division. He came to Laredo Community College in 1996 as vice president for student development and human resources. In 1998, he became vice president for instruction and student development, a designation he retained until 2006, when he was elevated to the position of executive vice president prior to the assumption the next year of the college presidency upon appointment by the trustees.

As LCC president

LCC was established in 1947 under auspices of the Laredo Independent School District. In 1970, the college established its own board of trustees with property taxing authority. In 1993, the nine-member board of trustees changed the name of Laredo Junior College to Laredo Community College. Maldonado considers LCC a "family" organization which does not "just teach [but] cultivates [student] development by providing a nurturing environment to enhance learning".

In September 2010, LCC trustees granted Maldonado a contract extension, salary increase, performance bonus, and a $5,000 contribution to his tax-sheltered annuity retirement fund. His pay through August 2013 was $163,211 annually. In 2013, the trustees extended Maldonado's contract to 2015 and increased his compensation by $20,000, or $185,000 annually. He also lives in a presidential home on the Fort McIntosh campus.

LCC trustee elections

In the fall of 2014, Maldonado became actively involved in LCC trustee elections when he stood on street corners and wrote two letters to the Laredo Morning Times to express support for two candidates, Jackie L. Ramos and Ed Gonzalez, who ran, respectively, against trustees Jesse Porras, a former LCC employee, and Hilario Cavazos, Jr., a former educator with the Laredo Independent School District. Maldonado also endorsed Carlos Carranco, Jr., for a seventh term as trustee, but Carranco was unseated by Tita Cantu Vela, a former LCC employee. Porras and Cavazos subsequently lost their reelection bids to Jackie Ramos and Michelle de la Peña, respectively. The defeats of Porras and Cavazos were considered major victories for Maldonado.

In October 2014, Maldonado took nearly two weeks of leave time while the trustee campaign was underway, in his words, "to reinstate a sense of professional decorum and integrity to our beloved LCC and its governing board." He affirmed that his leave time was not directly related to the trustee election campaign. Because of his political involvement, a letter writer to the Laredo Morning Times called for Maldonado to step down immediately.

The Laredo Morning Times questioned Maldonado's politicking in trustee elections; its education reporter, Judith Rayo, suggested that he could have been "walking on thin ice" legally in support of the three favored candidates, noting that in 1992 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans upheld the firing of a school superintendent for similar "electioneering".

After the November elections, the board in 2014 elected three new officers, with Hilario Cavazos as the temporary board president to succeed Cynthia Mares, but Cavazos' defeat at the polls a few weeks later in the runoff contest removed him from the ranks of the trustees. During his short tenure as board president, Cavazos was served a temporary restraining order initiated by fellow trustee Mercurio Martinez, a former county judge for Webb County, to block the board from reviewing the employment contracts of two employees accused of engaging in sexual relations on campus. Hilario Cavazos accused President Maldonado of "covering up a scandal, and he didn't do anything about it. I owed it to the public to try to correct this." In April 2015, Maldonado banned Cavazos from being on the LCC campus for fourteen days because of what Maldonado termed the former trustee's disruptive behavior at a public meeting on January 22.

Nora Stewart case

In January 2015, Maldonado suspended with pay LCC chief financial officer Nora Stewart, another member of his management team whom he claimed misused her staff to obtain an undisclosed college document that Maldonado considered to be "confidential." Her attorney, George Altgelt, subsequently elected to one of the eight seats on the Laredo City Council, said that Stewart had been "retaliated against for doing exactly what her job requires her to do." Stewart claims that Maldonado belittled her as "Miss Righteous" and then said in question form, "You are now the "auditor?", rather than the title of chief financial officer.

Without revealing details of the investigation conducted into the Stewart matter by a McAllen firm, Anderson and Walsh, the trustees on May 18, 2015, directed the administration and its attorney to prepare an "amicable agreement" for Stewart's separation from the college. Stewart joined LCC in 2002; she was previously the asset management officer.

However, the trustees reversed course and voted 5-3 to renew Stewart's contract for another year. Altgelt had threatened to sue the members individually had they not done so. Stewart had also clashed with preceding President Ramón Dovalina, whom she accused, along with the then the retiring chief financial officer Daniel J. "Dan" Flores, Jr. (1938-2016), of "retaliation, verbal abuse, harassment, mental anguish, creation of a hostile work environment, and excessive stress and harm to her professional reputation." Dovalina announced his pending departure within a month of the raising of Stewart's allegations. Stewart continued in her position when Maldonado succeeded Dovalina.

Retirement issues

In June 2015, the LCC trustees took formal action not to extend the president's contract for another year. This action forced Maldonado to retire earlier than he had planned.

Despite the controversies of his last two years in office, LCC was ranked tenth in 2015 among Texas' two-year colleges by the website BestColleges.com. The institution was cited for its two campuses, affordable tuition, the variety of associate degree programs, restored accreditation, and in the quality of its nursing and allied health programs.

Honors

In 2009, Maldonado received the "Tejano Achiever Award" from the interest group, the League of United Latin American Citizens. Maldonado is a member of the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education and was the president of that organization in 1997. In 2005, as the LCC vice president, Maldonado was among fourteen Laredoans appointed to the President's Laredo Advisory Council of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Successor

In May 2016, the trustees voted 6-1, with two members absent, to name Ricardo Solis as Maldonado's successor. Solis is the former dean of academic, professional, and technical education at GateWay Community College in Phoeniz, Arizona. A month later, the trustees bought out the last remaining month of Maldonado's contract and hired Solis as the replacement under a three-year contract at an annual salary of $180,000. Maldonado had started as president with $150,000 in annual compensation in 2007. Upon his departure from LCC, Maldonado received some $100,000 in unused sick leave and vacation days.

In 2017, Juan and Linda Maldonado were residing in San Antonio, Texas.