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When Sam Ulloa was growing up as a young farm worker in the Sacramento Valley, going to college—let alone one day graduating from Stanford Graduate School of Business one day—wasn't even a far-off dream. Truthfully, when he was a kid Ulloa didn't even know it was a possibility. "You can only dream what you know and understand," he says.
Today Ulloa not only holds an MBA and is building a start-up company in San Jose, but he also has helped found the San Jose Chapter the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) to support others in getting the exposure to the opportunities he's discovered. NSHMBA, an Oracle Community partner, serves 29 chapters and 7,000 members nationwide and gave more than $1 million in scholarships last year to Hispanic students pursuing MBAs.
"NSHMBA is a tremendous support group and even more so and it provides inspiration," Ulloa says. "NSHMBA helps you see the career possibilities, it becomes your network and gives you a pool of mentors who help guide your career."
Another key aspect of NSHMBA is that it connects members with Fortune 500 companies like Oracle. Dating back to 2002, Oracle has hosted several NSHMBA Professional Development Events at its headquarters and offices in cities such as Detroit. One recent event that Ulloa and 30 other members attended, "Step In, Step Up or Step Out: Taking Your Career to the Next Level," was held in June 2006 in Redwood City, and this summer in Detroit, Oracle will host more than 100 members for a similar event. At Oracle-hosted NSHMBA events, members get the chance to network and learn skills ranging from how to improve their resumes to how to communicate with management or plan their careers.
Oracle employees such as David Olivencia, Oracle director of Insight Program-TBU, also are long-time NSHMBA members. Olivencia helped the company forged its partnership with the organization and was president of the Detroit chapter from 2005 to 2006.
"If you look Oracle's support of diversity initiatives and NSHMBA, it's refreshing and very rewarding to see. Oracle has been 110 percent supportive of everything I've done and asked for on behalf of NSHMBA," he says. "It helps knowing that you have company that's aligned with the same goals you're aligned with."
Olivencia also notes that NSHMBA brings valuable opportunity and people to Oracle. For instance, NSHMBA gives Oracle access to its resume database. "NSHMBA is becoming more and more important to us from a recruiting perspective. It makes sense for Oracle to develop these relationships—we want the best workforce because we're a great company."
Ed Hernandez, current executive vice president of the San Jose chapter of NSHMBA agrees that the organization's partnership with Oracle is a win-win. "Oracle wants to have access to quality and diverse talent so it's important to reach out to organizations like ours," he says. "Members also are excited to going to these events at Oracle, the professional development aspect and hearing from dynamic speakers."
In addition, Oracle's support of NSHMBA "legitimizes the nonprofit," Ulloa says. "It shows that Oracle believes in the mission of the organization—without partners like Oracle, NSMBA wouldn't be as successful."
Perhaps most the most important outcome of Oracle's partnership with NSHMBA is talented people like Ulloa are exposed to new opportunities that are catalysts for new career paths—and dreams. "These events help attract new members," he says. "Because of these events you can see yourself wanting to be a part of this company."
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