Speaker credits Head Start for success

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Dan Garza says Head Start was the launching pad that saw his life transition from field work to eventually serving in the White House.

"It laid the foundation for more to come," he said before addressing a crowd of roughly 150 educators, social service workers and community leaders during a Tuesday luncheon at the Yakima Convention Center.

In a push to continue garnering community support, nonprofit Enterprise for Progress In the Community invited the 41-year-old former Toppenish resident to tell how he rose from working alongside his father in fields to serving as a liaison to Latino communities for President George W. Bush.

Garza, who now heads a center in Southern Texas that helps high school students reach higher education, says serving in the White House wasn't a dream he had ever had. And once getting there, he thought -- at first -- it was a place he didn't belong.

"I was scared to death," he said, explaining that he found himself surrounded by Harvard and Princeton graduates.

"And I thought they were something special and I was not," he said. "But everyone wants a chance, a shot, and here I was getting a shot."

It wasn't long before Garza realized the value of his experience growing up as a farm laborer, following crops from California to Washington and Nebraska.

His family often shopped at yard sales to furnish their rented homes.

"Knowledge comes from all corners of our nation," he said. "I got to the White House because my mother and father picked pears, peaches and apples."

Garza's parents in 1971 settled in Toppenish and he enrolled in Head Start, an early-learning program he says helped start his education.

But in high school, field work kept him from classes and graduation, so he earned a GED. He later attended Central Washington University, became a Toppenish police officer, served on the City Council and was GOP activist, who in 2000 hosted George P. Bush, nephew of the future president, at his Toppenish home.

In the White House, however, he said he worked in a high-pressure environment, becoming familiar with hundreds of Latino groups and working with Congressmen.

"It's high pressure," he said. "Everything you do is high pressure -- I don't have the ability to express the pressure that was involved."

Five minutes before gatherings in the East Room, he'd have to look into the audience and make sure people were there that Bush planned to address.

Once Bush called out to Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, but there was no reply. Sandoval wasn't there.

Another organizer working with Garza mistakenly checked Sandoval's name off as though he were there.

Bush then made light of it, saying "he must've got a bad seat," Garza recalled.

"Later, the president asked what happened to him," Garza said. "I had to fess up.

"That is about the biggest mistake I made, which is not bad."

Garza said he also worked on passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which was among the Bush administration's biggest accomplishments.

"It was a huge bill, vastly important, and I was in a key position to make a difference," he said.

He said he met with more than 300 Latino groups to get their endorsements.

"And to pressure Congressmen on the other side to come on board," he said.

He also was involved in several appointments, including those of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education Margaret Spellings and U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales.

"My job in those areas was to coordinate the endorsements of those appointments," he said.

Looking forward, Garza said he may consider tossing his hat in the political arena.

"I can't say anything yet, but there are talks with the party to maybe next year seek office," he said.

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