From Teller to Vice President: A Story of Hard Work, Success

The senior from Tustin High, the intense one in the front row wearing a necklace of colored beads, was anxious to ask the first question. He had just heard a motivational talk from Peter Villegas, a 32-year-old who had climbed from bank teller to vice president.

The inquisitive teenager is Victor Cabral, one of 35 Latino youngsters attending a summer leadership seminar at UC Irvine. His parents used to bank with Home Savings, one of three financial institutions recently gobbled up by Washington Mutual, the corporate giant the guest speaker represents. The teen was thinking of his parents and their limited schooling when he asked Villegas to explain how he had gotten so far without a bachelor’s degree.

“How did you deal with the situation that you didn’t go to [a four-year] college?” asked the college-bound Victor.

The invited motivator gave a response that sounded incongruous in this university setting. A college degree can be a drawback for some people, said Villegas, who discontinued his studies after attending Fullerton College. He’s noticed a certain smugness from some university-educated co-workers. Somehow, they feel they don’t have to work as hard, as if they automatically deserved the opportunities they got.

They didn’t have his get-it-done attitude. It was that gumption, not a higher education, that earned him his first promotion from teller to loan officer at a bank on Broadway in Santa Ana.

He remembers the busy day he impressed his manager by offering to work two teller windows simultaneously. A co-worker didn’t volunteer. She had seniority and a college degree, but Villegas beat her out for the better job.

“Diving for fumbles--that’s my mentality,” he told the attentive teenagers, selected for this program precisely for their college potential.

You can still see the athlete and the fighter in Villegas under his dark, double-breasted suit and crisp white shirt. He was an average student at Apple Valley High School in the high desert, where he excelled in basketball and street brawling.

He was the type of kid who’d pick a fight if he didn’t like the way you looked at him. So imagine the pounding he delivered one day to the guy who called him a “spic” and a “wetback.”

“He’s never gonna say that to me or anybody else again,” the 6-foot-2 banker recalled at a campus coffee shop after his talk. He still flashed a flicker of the old outrage at being racially insulted for the first time in his life.

“Before that, I didn’t think of myself as Latino,” he said.

Today, Villegas is among the most visible Latinos in Orange County. He’s immediate past president of the county’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and an advisor to the Hispanic Education Endowment Fund, the college scholarship program that sponsored the summer leadership program at UCI.

In his close-to-six-figure job, Villegas represents Washington Mutual in community affairs and government relations. He’s in charge of Southern California and occupies a corner suite on the 22nd floor of a Wilshire Boulevard high-rise near downtown L.A.

Every morning, he still feels impressed by his own success when he enters the roomy office decorated with his sports trophies and memorabilia.

“Wow!” he tells himself. “Look what I’ve been able to do.”

Villegas wanted the high school students at the leadership seminar to believe they can do it too. They heard the same message from his co-presenter, Isabelle Villasenor, the daughter of a gardener who built a chain of seven McDonald’s restaurants after her divorce. She didn’t have a college degree either.

Villegas and Villasenor echoed a free-market mantra: Hard work can overcome social barriers and lift you to the top in corporate America.

The kids listened politely. But their questions afterward suggested they weren’t all buying it.

One boy wondered about underemployment and how people can make a decent living by flipping burgers for minimum wage. A girl had read an article about how banks abandon low-income communities, and she wanted a comment about that. Another girl asked if the economic benefits of big corporate mergers outweigh the damage done to small businesses, a bulwark of Latino barrios.

The presenters found themselves defending the system they had come to promote. “We live in a capitalist country,” Villasenor said. “That’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.”

But not everybody gets the chance to move up in the capitalist world, objected Rosie Ortega, 17, of Loara High School in Anaheim. There are tons of people at the bottom of society and only so many opportunities at the top, she noted sweetly.

“If everybody were rich, we wouldn’t have anybody to work at McDonald’s or wash your cars,” said Rosie, who marches in the color guard and plays sax in the band. “So it’s not as much of a family [in corporate America] as you guys portray.”

Villegas took a drink from his ever-present water bottle.

“I applaud you guys and your questions,” he said as he jokingly stretched his neck as if it had suddenly gotten hot under his collar. “Good for you to address those issues. You put me on the spot.”

Villegas defended the bank and its commitment to community causes--such as the Hispanic endowment fund, which offers students the financial aid he never had to attend college. He also noted the bank’s significant investment in low- and moderate-income areas.

Later at the cafe, after ordering another bottled water, Villegas said the students’ challenges had not rattled his faith in his formula for success. He believes in the traits that made a difference for him.

Be aggressive. Give 100%. Seize opportunities. Stay positive. Show a “willingness to go the extra yard to separate yourself from the rest of the pack.”

Villegas is compulsive about punctuality. He likes to arrive early, a habit he learned at home. His parents, Manuel and Elena, made sure the family arrived at least a half-hour before the start of Mass on Sunday.

“To this day we do everything early,” Mrs. Villegas told me. “It’s a must. It’s a courtesy.”

The couple raised seven children, all boys. Peter was the youngest. He was christened Pedro Refugio, after his grandfathers. But to this day, his mom calls him Pedrito when she’s lonely for him. He became an altar boy at a very young age and loved his pet Pekingese, Ping-Pong.

Peter’s parents will celebrate their 50th anniversary next year. His father worked 34 years for a cement company, drilling holes for blasting the side of mountains. His mom worked 18 years for a furniture company, then another 18 for the state unemployment office.

Their living standard was modest: “just needs; no wants.” Mr. and Mrs. Villegas still stress the importance of saving, Peter says.

He doesn’t recall having any connections with his teachers. When he started getting into trouble, it was his older brothers who stepped in to straighten him out. They were like godfathers to him, offering guidance and a refuge when he needed to get away.

“I wasn’t the best kid in town,” Villegas said. “I was on the verge. If I didn’t watch my step, I could have gone a different route.”

He even had to overcome his bad-boy image to woo his wife, Vickie, a court reporter. For him, it was love at first sight. “My whole world was complete when I met her,” he said.

His family may have worried for a while, but Villegas was sure he would turn out all right. His confidence came from his ability to envision his future, like he envisioned wedding Vickie.

“I knew I was going to wear a suit and tie, but I didn’t know for what,” he said intently, oblivious to the university students all around us. “When I was in high school, I envisioned myself as I am right now. And now I’m creating new visions.”

Nowadays, he peers into his crystal ball and sees Sen. Villegas. People have urged him to run for office, he said, but he hasn’t made up his mind.

“Government and business go hand in hand,” he had told the students.

Villegas said he took a nontraditional route to the top, but he wants the students to go further than he did. His advice: “Go ahead and get your college degree, but keep that hunger.”

Somebody asked another question about his education as foundation for his future: “Did high school prepare you?”

School wasn’t his priority, he admitted. But he picked up other skills along the way. A teller, for example, has to know how to handle cash.

“You gotta be able to count the money,” Villegas said. “I’m pretty good at that.”

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.