He has run the San Francisco Marathon across the Golden Gate Bridge twice. The first time he participated in this marathon was 15 years ago. He decided to do the marathon on a whim, with a little encouragement from a friend. It was his first time ever participating in any marathon and yet he completed the full marathon three in and a half hours.
Montemayor has held his new position as the dean of counseling and matriculation at SJCC for a bit more than two weeks now. He said that he really likes SJCC so far.
Fabio Gonzalez, Extended Opportunity Programs and Services counselor, was the chair of the hiring committee for hiring the new dean of counseling and matriculation.
“(Montemayor) is very capable and he comes with the best set of skills to serve the college and the department that he will be supervising,” Gonzalez said.
As the new dean of counseling and matriculation, Montemayor is responsible for all of the counseling programs at SJCC.
“For (Montemayor) to be coming on board in the middle of the year is quite a difficult task to ask of him, but I really think that he has the skills and the leadership abilities to really help us in being in the leader of the whole department that we have here,” Gonzalez said.
Montemayor received his master’s degree in counseling and undergraduate degree in social sciences at San Jose State University. He finished his master’s degree in two years. While he was attending SJSU as a full- time student he also worked full time and he also commuted to and from Monterey County to San Jose. He said that finding a way of balancing all of that was very difficult for him but in the end it was all worth it.
Montemayor is of a Latino background. He grew up in Monterey County and he speaks both English and Spanish. Before coming to work for SJCC, he worked at San Francisco City College, Alliant International University in San Francisco, and Hartnell College in Salinas.
The thing that motivated Montemayor to want to become involved with a career in education was when he volunteered for AmeriCorps Volunteers In Service to America. AmeriCorps VISTA is a volunteer program where people dedicate themselves a project that they have to work on within the community. The project that he was in charge of coordinating was a literacy program that worked with adults and worked around reading.
“It was a life changing (experience) and it made me really think about how education is so important. From there I decided to continue into higher education,” Montemayor said.
Montemayor said that he is excited to about his new position at SJCC and that he sees a lot of potential for things that can be done at the college with the different counseling programs.
He said, “We (the counseling department) are really looking how we can be really effective to students. I want to make sure that whatever programs I am responsible for are doing a good job for students.”
The new dean is still getting settled in and getting to know the SJCC community and staff.
Elizabeth Eckford, interim director of student life, said that she has had only some brief interactions with the dean so far, but she is very excited to be working with him.
“I have found Ronald Montemayor to be extremely cordial man and very friendly,” said Eckford, “and I think he is prepared to handle the counseling department here at SJCC.”
