David Perez (’81), founder and CEO of Latin Force, LLC, who delivered the commencement address.  Perez received the 2005 Hispanic Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  Before starting Latin Force, Perez was president and co-founder of Lumina Americas, a Hispanic/Latin American integrated marketing company. Perez is the former Chairman of the Cultural Access Group, a leading multicultural market research firm since 1986. David is also co-founder of the New Generation Latino Consortium, a non-profit industry advocacy group (http://www.nglc.net/ ), and founder of Silverlining, a non-profit internet-based community for families of terminally ill children. 

Perez – whose speech followed addresses by our top undergraduate student, Scott McClure, and top MBA student, Mila Lonetto – encouraged graduates to, “nurture your inspiration and fuel it with determination, humor, passion and commitment. The determination to be the best you can be, the humor to laugh and enjoy the journey, the passion to make a difference and the commitment to be true to yourself.”  Perez, an accomplished man by any measure, advised graduates that there is no single definition of success, no ultimate destination; part the challenge and the thrill of life is finding one’s own inspiration and forging one’s own path.  The class of 2007 presented David Perez with an engraved pewter bowl as a token of their appreciation.