The Latino Professionals Association Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month: Home-Grown Activist
Originally planning to be a lawyer, David Aguayo realized he could have impact his community in the world of politics.
David Aguayo is a home-grown talent and activist who has taken advantage of the opportunities that have come his way and have poised him to someday achieve his dream of running for elective office.
Aguayo is a product of the Madison public school system, eventually graduating from Madison East in 2011 and attending UW-Madison where he pursued a pre-law degree.
“I thought I was going to be an attorney,” Aguayo said. “It turns out that law school is very expensive, so I ended up not going to law school. But I still got a legal studies/criminal justice major and minor. After undergrad, I went to Washington, D.C. where because I thought I would be an attorney, I went to work as a paralegal at the Federal Trade Commission. That was an awesome experience. It’s a mid-sized agency, so it is tight-knit. I got the chance to work with a lot of the commissioners and appointed people who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. So it was really cool to get that experience and be in that political hub that is DC.”
Aguayo got a taste for the political process while in Washington, D.C. and learned the art and importance of networking.
“I got connected to the mayor’s office there,” Aguayo said. “I was appointed by the mayor to sit on the commission on Latino Community Development. I did some work with the mayor’s office. DC is really a word-of-mouth city with who you know connections. I would just grab coffee and sit down with folks whenever I had the chance. One conversation led to another. I ultimately getting connected to U.S. Rep Pocan’s chief of staff Glenn Wavrunek. He offered me an internship with the office. I began an internship in his office. All of this culminated in solidifying my interest in public service in government and politics.”
When Aguayo and his wife wanted to start raising a family, they moved back to Madison to be near their parents and families. But that doesn’t mean that Aguayo was removed from politics.
“I knew that what I wanted to do was get involved with local politics,” Aguayo said. “I helped co-run Kaleem Caire’s school board campaign. Unfortunately, we did not win. We lost by about 3,000 votes. But that was a great experience in co-managing that campaign. After that, I went to work at the Dept. of Workforce Development in the Secretary Caleb Frostman’s office. I was the executive assistant. I continued to network and have more conversations.”
One of those conversations was with Ben Wikler, the head of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
“I ended up becoming the finance manager for the party,” Aguayo said. “That led to me becoming the candidates services manager and ultimately the party’s first Latino outreach manager. Being in that position, I really had to put programs together and build the infrastructure for the Latino outreach here in the state when Biden was announced as the Democratic nominee. They came and absorbed Wisconsin’s infrastructure. We had the Latino Coalition, the Black Coalition, Native American Coalition, AAPI Coalition, LGBTQ Coalition and Rural Coalition. There were some other coalitions as well. But we all eventually got absorbed by the Biden campaign and that is how I transitioned over to the Biden for President Campaign as the Wisconsin Latino coalition director. We did tremendous work. Latinos were the biggest minority voting block for that election. Early reports show that the Latino vote really carried Biden in this state. I was really proud of the work that we did there.”
Aguayo continued to be involved with campaigns through Aguayo, LLC where he would provide advice, support and information to campaigns without getting involved in the nitty gritty of implementing a campaign. It also allowed Aguayo to get a government liaison position with the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce.
“Zach Brandon asked if I was interested in leading the chamber’s advocacy and policy work,” Aguayo said. “We had a conversation and it ended up with me being the head of Advocacy and Public Policy here at the chamber. We lobby on all levels of government, local, state and federal. We endorse in local elections, non-partisan races. The mayor’s and city council races are where we have the most impact, so we endorse in those races. We also monitor legislation at all levels of government to ensure that the business community is being represented in those conversations.”
Aguayo’s work with the chamber was primarily behind the scenes where he worked on influencing governmental policies that could impact the greater Madison area. For three years, Aguayo worked on the tech hub initiative of the Federal Government, an initiative that only now is beginning to gain visibility.
“This is an idea that began with Rep. Gallagher and Senator Baldwin being authors of this bill called the Endless Frontier Act,” Aguayo said. “What that essentially did was take tech hubs out of just the coastal areas and spread them throughout the United States. It was based on this idea that the Brookings Institute pushed on tech hubs that we need to spread technology and innovation beyond the coastal areas. When you think of tech hub, you think of California’s Silicon Valley. The idea was to get these cities that already have that potential the right ingredients to be the next tech hubs and use federal stimulus and watch it grow. That was rolled into the United States Innovation and Competition Act and the America Competes Act, which ultimately got rolled into the CHIPS Act, which got signed into law by President Biden just recently. It’s the culmination of different bills rolling into different variations of what it would look like. Language was put in and language was taken out. We lobbied for Congress to maintain the original concept, which was to give money or federal stimulus to these cities that already have the right ingredients. It’s not a gamble or a waste on a city that may not have all of the ingredients. We made sure that Madison was always on the top of this list. And we were on the top of the list. The Brookings Institute placed Madison as the number one city in the United States that would have all the right ingredients to become the next tech hub.”
After the concept became embodied in legislation, Aguayo had to step back and let a 15-member consortium take the lead in developing the concept and submitting it to the Federal Government.
“Not many people would have been paying attention to it,” Aguayo said. “We picked up on it and saw its value and really brought it to the finish line and made sure even through the finish line that we carried it and helped the consortia apply for it. I’ve been working on this program since its conception and in handing it off to the consortia, I’m excited, but nervous at the same time to see what this project does.”
Someday, Aguayo plans to run for elective office, creating the networks that he needs to have a good shot at being elected. While elected office has its downside, Aguayo loves the idea of being able to positively impact people’s lives through public policy.
“The work that you are doing, if your team or person wins, you get to see the product of your work play out,” Aguayo said reflecting on his work in the Biden campaign. “And that is really rewarding to see. Biden’s campaign ran on reducing student loan debt. He did it. Unfortunately the other side mashed it and put it down. He campaigned on Medicare and now just today, the names of the 10 drugs that will have their price negotiated were released today. It’s just those kind of things that you get to see play out in real life.”
While Aguayo plans to continue to impact public policy, how that happens will depend on the opportunities that present themselves.
“I can see myself running for public office or alternatively, just growing my own brand, Aguayo LLC., making that a premier consulting firm here in the region for people and candidates of color, really just blowing that up and making some good money off of that,” Aguayo said. “Time will tell. In 10 years, it’s either in public office or something to do with my brand and my business and seeing where that goes.”
Whichever route he takes, David Aguayo will be impacting public policy in Madison and beyond for decades to come.