After successful career, Contreras says goodbye to San Antonio (and the U.S.)

Our partner section is reserved for those partners and partnerships in the community that help make RTW run effectively smoothly. This time, the spotlight turns to one of the biggest champions and partners RTW has had over the past few years. Amy Contreras is leaving her post at the City of San Antonio and retiring to live in Spain.

Amy served as the Workforce Development Office’s assistant to the director. The chief of staff, in essence. She’s been our calendar keeper, de facto policy director, friend, liaison and mentor. She’s the angel on our shoulder. The person who tells it like she sees it. A true advocate for San Antonio and this program. But now, Amy is wrapping up her career and officially closing the chapter on her professional life. She will be residing in Jerez de la Frontera, also known as the Sherry capital of the world, with her husband, Carlos. Yes, you read that correctly.

Amy first became an international tax lawyer but believe it or not she started out wanting to clean hotel rooms! “How fun to always be in hotels!” she exclaimed. She also thought about careers as a heart surgeon, a cartographer, a baseball umpire, a cartoonist and a politician. Whatever it was, though, she says she just wanted to enjoy her work and excel at it. Turns out, the international tax lawyer thing actually worked out well for her. It aligned well with her strengths in technical analysis and global thinking. She did that for more than 20 years before coming to the City of San Antonio, working in the Economic Development Department’s Global Engagement Office. Perhaps one of her favorite projects there was helping develop the Passport San Antonio initiative.

No doubt, Amy had a blast promoting the City of San Antonio on the world stage. She had always loved to travel, thanks to her parents who held PhDs in educational administration.

“I knew the importance of education in our society,” she said.

Shortly after the COVID pandemic, the Ready to Work proposition came before voters and passed overwhelmingly with the support of San Antonians. Amy knew she had to work for the Workforce Development Office. The more she worked and traveled, the more she wanted to help improve the lives of people through education. RTW, she said, was right down her alley.

Amy sees the program as having the right priorities – helping those who have been systemically left behind.

“The work is harder than it sounds,” she said. If she had a magic wand, Amy would add courses like English as a second language, self-advocacy, and labor rights for participants to be able to learn, in addition to the technical skills they are getting in their training programs.

She believes she’s been lucky to be able to incorporate her ideas and thinking of ways to improve RTW. She says that her bosses have always let her run with ideas, and she credits the Workforce Development Office director, Mike Ramsey, with letting her try new things.

Every night, Amy says she goes to bed thinking of RTW, and she is sure that won’t stop. When she closes her eyes and sees what the end of the program will ultimately be like, she hopes that people will look back and say, “Wow!” because San Antonio’s post-secondary attainment will be around 10% higher than it would have been otherwise.? That is remarkable.

“Our participants and their families will be out of poverty, which will allow them to open doors that might otherwise be closed,” she said. “I realized that people who pay attention to local government and who organize their efforts to make change, can, and do make change,” she said.

Of course, Amy will miss things like breakfast tacos, live music and Mike Ramsey’s contagious laugh. But likely not as much as the Workforce Development Office staff, partners and RTW community as whole. She has made an incredible and indelible difference for the program and its people.

For that, we say a heartfelt thank you. And, not a goodbye… but see you soon, friend.