VENTURA : El Concilio Names Executive Director

Community service worker Francisco Dominguez, an advocate for Latino political empowerment in California, has been chosen as executive director of El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, a nonprofit social service organization.

Dominguez will replace Marcos Vargas, who announced last month that he was stepping down from the group after eight years to pursue a doctorate in urban planning at UCLA.

El Concilio President Bernardo Perez said in a written statement that Dominguez was the perfect person for the job because of his commitment to community service and “years of active community involvement at the local, state and national level.”

“I’m very excited,” Dominguez said in an interview Wednesday. “The organization has a great reputation in this county, and I’m honored to serve as executive director.”

Dominguez, currently employed as economic development manager for the Ventura County Job Training Policy Council, was raised in Oxnard, left for Northern California to attend college and moved back to Ventura County in 1992.

He has more than 10 years of experience with nonprofit, community-based organizations. Last year, Dominguez made an unsuccessful bid for the Oxnard School District’s board of trustees, garnering only 9% of the vote.

Dominguez, 33, served three years with the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials as director of constituency services and U.S. citizenship director. He also served two years as project manager for Mexican American Community Service Inc. of San Jose.

A graduate of San Jose State University, Dominguez worked as an aide to then-San Jose Councilman James Beall Jr. and Assemblyman John Vasconcellos.

He served on the board of education for the Franklin McKinley School District in San Jose, and was a founding member of the San Jose-based Assn. for Responsible Alcohol Control.