Tri-Citian of the Year epitomizes American Dream

By KEN HARVEY

Frank Armijo is what the American Dream is all about, and he continues to share that dream with anyone who will listen. 

It was appropriate that the naming of this former migrant child as Tri-Citian of the Year came just one day after final legislative approval to make Washington State University Tri-Cities (WSU-TC) a full-fledged university, with courses for students from freshmen to doctorate.

While the former migrant has accomplished many things during his career, none was bigger than the WSU-TC victory that education and economic leaders in the Tri-Cities say could be the key to the Tri-Cities’ future.

Armijo, director/general manager of Lockheed Martin Information Technology, has long been an active community leader in such roles as chairman of the board of directors of the Tri-City Industrial Development Council (TRIDEC), member of the Columbia Basin College (CBC) Board of Directors, and more recently as chairman of TRIDEC’s Higher Education Committee.

Supported by such people as the CBC president, the WSU-TC chancellor, and local public school superintendents, Armijo’s committee developed a revolutionary proposal to create one coordinating agency to enhance education in the Tri-Cities from cradle to grave, and to bridge the transitions along the way where many people – but particularly those already facing obstacles of poverty, language and mobility – frequently fall through the cracks.

The springboard to the proposal, however, was to get approval to expand WSU-TC, link it to cutting-edge Tri-City institutions such as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with its $700 million research budget and 750 Ph.Ds on staff, and to create a fully integrated program between WSU-TC and CBC.

WSU-TC Chancellor Dave Lemak predicts in the next 10 years the WSU-TC campus can now grow from about 1,200 students to over 5,000 students and become a “destination campus.” More importantly, Lemak feels WSU-TC’s partnership with PNNL can help it to become a world-class research center in bio-products and bio-technology – helping to show the world how to make fuel, plastics and other important products out of agricultural crops rather than oil.

The impact on the Tri-Cities will be “unbelievable,” Lemak says.

Indeed, by partnering with PNNL, Armijo and the rest of the TRIDEC committee envisioned a local university with “world-class programs and professors. What we are trying to accomplish here is one of the top priorities for our community,” he said.

Without a full-fledged university, “we are limiting our potential in serving students and in building our economy,” Armijo argued.

Rep. Larry Haler took up the cause in the Legislature.

“My big issue right now is education. No. 1 on my list is a Tri-Cities university. If we don’t get a four-year university, we may not be able to keep some of the projects at PNNL,” Haler said. But the Richland Republican acknowledges that without Armijo’s leadership the proposal would have failed.

 As the legislative session began in January, however, it looked like the Tri-City higher education plan had no chance to be approved.

“It was not going well at all, in fact going backwards,” says Armijo.

Rep. Phyllis Kenney, D-Seattle, who chairs the House Higher Education Committee, in essence declared the plan dead, and Rep. Haler called Armijo for help.

So Armijo arranged to talk to Gov. Christine Gregoire, who agreed to support the plan and sign the bill if passed by the Legislature. Then he met privately with Rep. Kenney.

“We worked through all our issues,” says Armijo, and Kenney immediately called her bill writer and Rep. Haler to her office. “We rewrote a new bill right then and there.”

Armijo also led a large group of community leaders to Olympia to testify before the legislative committees, helping the bill to pass with overwhelming support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Gov. Gregoire then signed the WSU-TC expansion bill into law at a ceremony March 22 in the Tri-Cities.

But Armijo’s path from migrant lifestyle to personal success and community leadership was not easy.

“My parents, Rosalio and Carmen Armijo, were from a small town in Texas along the border -- Edinburg. My parents worked the fields until I was about 5 years old, when my dad started working for George Grant Construction,” Armijo recounts.  “My mother went to work for a potato processing plant.”  

Being an ethnic minority in those days was a challenge.

“In the late 1960s and most of the ‘70s there weren’t a lot of Hispanics in the Tri-Cities.  My father moved us from Kennewick to Pasco when they had a law that no blacks could be seen outside after dark in Kennewick.  My dad did not agree with that,” Armijo says.   

Frank was the youngest child in the family, with three older sisters. He was the first member of the family to attend and graduate from college.

“That was mainly because I walked onto CBC's basketball team and earned a scholarship,” Armijo says. “My sisters were all smart, but the main focus of our family was to graduate from high school and have a strong work ethic.”

Frank’s father signed him up for several union apprenticeship positions, and Armijo says he’s sure he would still be working in a union trade if it weren’t for his love for basketball.  

The director of one of the Tri-Cities most high-tech companies had never touched a computer until he went to Columbia Basin College. 

“I took an aptitude test, and I scored in the top 2 percent for aptitude in computer science.  I thought it must be incorrect because I had never touched a computer,” he says.  “However, I enrolled in a new computer science program at CBC.  I thought I was out of my element because everyone in the class seemed to be computer geeks and I was a basketball jock.  

“But I learned quickly, and I was pretty good at programming, understanding the logic and doing well.  I was still not excited about programming eight hours a day, however, and I knew I needed more human interaction,” he says.  “My wife Sherry, my girlfriend at the time, encouraged me to pursue my BA degree in business.” 

But Frank’s family did not have money for college, and Armijo was barely making his way through CBC on a scholarship and a part-time job.

“I didn't know how I could afford moving away to a university, but I enrolled at Eastern and took out school loans, did work-study, came home for Mom's tortillas, and did whatever I could to afford my next two years of college,” he says.  “It sometimes was tough to see other students living large at college, but I believe having to manage my money, expenses, class work and the fun college experience made me more focused on my goals.” 

With his A.S. in computer science and an A.A. in business from CBC, Frank majored in information systems management, with a communications minor, at Eastern Washington University.  Girlfriend Sherry also went to EWU and graduated with a marketing degree and a minor in economics.

“We were married a few years later and just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this past October,” says Frank.   

Frank rose quickly through the business ranks as an innovative technical expert and a natural leader.

Armijo knows how important education has been in his own life, and that’s why it has been part of his life’s mission to help other youths – especially Hispanic children – to have the same opportunity.

“Education has changed my life, and my younger nieces and nephews know what it can do for them.  In our family, it no longer is a question of ‘Can I go to college’ but becomes a question, ‘What college am I going to?’  That is what we want for every Hispanic student.

After Armijo returned to the Tri-Cities, he began speaking in classrooms about the importance of education and began getting involved in a variety of community organizations. At the age of 27 he was appointed by Gov. Booth Gardner to the CBC Board of Trustees. 

“I was the youngest person to ever be appointed to a Board of Trustees,” Armijo says. “I don't think Gov. Gardner knew my age when he appointed me.”

But within three years he became the chairman of the Board of Trustees and hired current President Lee Thornton. 

“We were very focused on expanding the enrollment of minorities and expanding programs in computer science, which went from a single degree to now over six disciplines and other vocational programs,” Armijo says.

During his 10 years on the board, he also helped start CBC's soccer teams and build a strong college that reflects the community. About 25 percent of CBC’s student population is now Hispanic, which Lemak hopes will help WSU-TC also develop a strong appeal to the local Hispanic community as it strengthens its ties with CBC and develops its own full university programs.

The Hispanic Academic Achievers Program (HAAP) was then conceived in 1988 as the brainchild of Armijo, his sister Linda, and Ruben and Gloria Lemos, who noticed that too many Hispanic children were dropping out of school and not pursuing their high school diploma, nor college. 

“The four of us organized HAAP to recognize kids in grades 4-12 for their academic excellence.  It is a simple concept to be a springboard for youth and their family to strive for a better life through their education,” Armijo says.  

The first year they recognized 235 students in Pasco. The next year Kennewick wanted to get involved, then Richland, Connell, and surrounding communities, now including Yakima and Moses Lake. 

“We work closely with parents, teachers and the school districts,” Armijo explains.  “Our whole approach is to communicate to the kids the importance of their education and to the parents in Spanish the importance of keeping their children in school, focused on their education.”

They explain to parents that even though they may not have much money, there are many ways to afford a college education. To further motivate the Hispanic families, HAAP began raising donations and awarding scholarships at their annual program. The first year all they could raise was $4,000.

“This year we hope to give out over 40 scholarships totaling over $100,000 and surpassing $1,000,000 since HAAP began,” Armijo says. 

“My dream is to have more Hispanic doctors, dentists, engineers, lawyers, business owners, etc.  I already see a tremendous difference from just 10 years ago.  At HAAP we are proud that many of our former HAAP graduates are now back in the community working for many businesses as engineers, etc., and our current HAAP president is a past scholarship recipient who is now a network engineer,” says Armijo.  “Our family values, work ethic and with a focus on education, every migrant and Hispanic family can achieve the American Dream.” 

While Armijo has focused much of his volunteer efforts on helping Hispanic children overcome poverty, language and other barriers to success through education, he was also one of the founders of such educational organizations as Leadership Tri-Cities (for adults) and the Reading Foundation (aimed at assisting children of all backgrounds, from birth to fourth grade). He is now on Gregoire’s Washington Learns Task Force steering committee, and he is involved in the United Way, the Washington State Economic Development Commission, Washington State University and the Columbia Basin College Foundation.

Armijo’s great accomplishments in the community have many people from all ethnic backgrounds talking about him running for Congress or some other political office, but for now Frank is enjoying his recent legislative victory and looking forward to helping establish in the Tri-Cities the most integrated educational system ever achieved.

Armijo says his father set the example of hard work, service and community involvement. 

“My parents taught us all a strong work ethic and to give back.  My parents started the Tri-City Latin American Association in the 1960s with other local leaders to fight on behalf of farm workers and other key issues,” Armijo explains. “My dad was the first Washington State Hispanic delegate to the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago.”

So community involvement came to Frank naturally.

“Our family wants to continue to give back to a community that has been kind to us.  We want to help with making our community a better place to live,” he says. 

While Armijo’s selection as Tri-Citian of the Year was no surprise to the hundreds attending the event, he says it was a complete surprise to him.

“I didn’t have any idea,” he says.

 “Frank understands the tremendous value of higher education, as evidenced by his extraordinary work with HAAP,” says WSU-TC Chancellor Lemak.

“Frank was a key player in getting all the stakeholders to come behind the final TRIDEC (education) plan,” Lemak says. “Without his leadership, communication and collaboration skills, we probably could not have come to such a strong, comprehensive plan. I could not be more proud to have Frank as a friend, ally and advocate for WSU. His selection as Tri-Citian of the Year says it all.”