Juan Sepúlveda, a San Antonio resident who grew up in Topeka, Kansas, is the San Antonio site director of The Common Enterprise (TCE), a new national community problem-solving initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation which encourages citizens to step beyond the ideological and partisan barriers which often frame political and social debates and work to address these issues together as partners with a common stake in their community.

In San Antonio, TCE is working with the public school system, particularly high schools, and their surrounding neighborhoods in three program areas: San Antonio Talks, San Antonio Acts, and San Antonio Connects. San Antonio Talks is focused on providing community forums and dialogues covering important school and neighborhood issues as well as other topics of concern to families. San Antonio Acts is centered on young people and is aimed at developing them as leaders today, helping them do real work, and building relationships between youth from all parts of Bexar County. San Antonio Connects is targeted at strengthening relationships between folks who usually do not come together, such as parents, businesses, community residents, students, and teachers. The overarching mission of these programs is to help build better high schools; rebuild the relationship between schools and their neighborhoods; and help foster a larger, citywide sense of community among all the stakeholders impacted by these institutions, particularly young people.

Juan has been involved in community organizing and politics since the age of 16 when he was the first high school student hired to work for the Kansas Secretary of State, and has also worked closely with the late Willie Velasquez and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP). He is currently completing a political biography of Willie and an organizational history of SVREP. Juan graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Government; completed a combined degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; received his law degree from Stanford Law School; and has been admitted to the Texas Bar.

Nationally, Juan is a board member of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the National Civic League, the Center for Policy Alternatives, the Alliance for National Renewal, the Civic Practices Network, Civic Network Television, and the White House Presidential Internship Fund. He also served as a member of the Arkansas Rhodes Scholar Selection Committee. Locally, he is a board member of the San Antonio and Hill Country YMCA, the Enterprise Foundation, the San Antonio Community Education Leadership Program, CityYear, the Mind Science Foundation, the River Road Neighborhood Association, the Hispanic Outreach Committee of the American Heart Association, and serves as co-chair of the Latino and Jewish Dialogue group as well as chair of the School Committee of the San Antonio Harvard-Radcliffe Club.

back to participant page

Juan Sepúlveda
The Common Enterprise
San Antonio, TX