Originally published March 27, 2015
By Daniel Perez
UTEP News Service
A 10-year employee of The University of Texas at El Paso recently returned from a 19-month mobilization with the Naval Reserves and was tapped to lead UTEP’s Department of Parking and Transportation Services.
Ruben Chavira, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from UTEP in 1995, took the reins of the department on Monday, March 9, 2015. He is in charge of UTEP’s more than 40 parking lots, two parking garages and the Miner Metro shuttle service. The department has a $4.2 million budget and 13 full-time employees.
Chavira will continue to serve under the Office of the Vice President for Business Affairs, where he had been director of business assessment and planning since 2007.
The director, a lieutenant in the Naval Reserves, said his duties during a recent military mobilization in Afghanistan caught the attention of University administrators. During his time abroad, Chavira helped manage $72 million in military resources and assisted in the development of the logistics infrastructure for the Afghan National Army’s engineering brigade.
“I’m excited about this new opportunity,” said Chavira, whose deployment was from May 2013 through December 2014. “My experiences at the University and with military logistics have prepared me to take on this new challenge. I look forward to building on the department’s past successes.”
One of his biggest backers is Victor Pacheco, Ph.D., assistant vice president for business affairs, who has worked with Chavira for eight years. He said Chavira’s comprehensive background in logistics, manufacturing, operations and business along with his communication skills made him the right person for the job, which had been vacant about a year, despite a national search.
“This is a win-win-win for everyone – for Ruben, for the department and for the University,” Pacheco said.
He said Chavira was asked to focus on how technology could enhance the campus’ parking needs for students, staff, faculty and patrons of athletic and entertainment events. Past examples include the free GPS app that lets Miner Metro users with smartphones know the location of the shuttles, and the chip in the parking permits that automatically raises the mechanical arms at the entry gates on Rim Road and University Avenue.
The past two years have seemed like a whirlwind for Chavira, an El Paso native from a military family. He is grateful to be home with his wife, Blanca, and closer to his five children and his mother, Gloria, who mostly live in El Paso.
After a few months of training in California, he was deployed to the Middle East, where he helped manage military resources during the deconstruction of several U.S. camps where materials were repurposed, given to the Afghan military or scrapped. His supervisors were so pleased with his job performance that they ordered him to serve as the supply officer on a second task force that helped train, advise and assist in the creation of the Afghan’s engineering brigade. The goal was to make the unit self-sustaining and ready for engineering contingencies such as the creation of water wells and bridges, or the ability to respond to natural disasters.
Chavira and the units with which he served earned several commendations for their work, including a nomination for the prestigious Admiral Stan Arthur Award for Logistics Excellence, which will be announced in July 2015.
“It is a really big honor just to be nominated for this award and my team has a really good chance to win in the team category,” he said.
Chavira was grateful to University President Diana Natalicio for sending him occasional emails that thanked him for his military service and kept him informed about the University’s Centennial activities, and Pacheco, for making the transition back to the University as seamless as possible.
While he knows he has his hands full with his new job, he plans to continue his campus and community efforts to guide and counsel University students who are interested in the military and military-affiliated students who are interested in pursuing higher education, especially at UTEP. He plans to be a mentor through UTEP’s Military Student Success Center (MSSC).
Nadia Muñoz, MSSC director, said Chavira will be an asset to her program and the growing number of military-affiliated students who visit her program’s offices.
“I hope he becomes a model to other UTEP veterans to get involved and help those in transition” from the military to higher education, said Muñoz, who praised his wealth of knowledge as a veteran and University employee. She said he accepted her invitation to speak at UTEP’s Military Appreciation Week kickoff at 11:30 a.m. Monday, May 4, at Union Plaza.
Not one to sit on his laurels, Chavira plans to enroll in UTEP’s Master of Leadership Studies program this fall.