Episode 18: Putting People First and Hispanic Heritage Month: Leo Pacheco, Beacon

Leo Pacheco, Branch Manager at Beacon , discusses how Hispanic Heritage Month helps highlight the importance for leaders to put people first all year long — as well as ways companies and leaders can celebrate Hispanic culture at work.

Transcript

Dr. Alexandria White: Hey, Leo. How are you?

Leo Pacheco: I'm good, Dr. Wright. How are you?

Dr. Alexandria White: I am wonderful. So can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Leo Pacheco: My name is Leo Pacheco. I've been with Beacon for five years. My role here with Beacon is as a branch manager. We're a Fortune 500 company, publicly traded, one of the largest distributors of roofing materials, complementary building products in all of North America, over 400 branches throughout the 50 states and in Canada.

Dr. Alexandria White: And so for our listeners, we actually had the CEO Julian Francis of Beacon on one of our episodes. So take a look at that if you have not listened to that before.

So just for context, I had the pleasure of interviewing Leo for an initiative that Beacon is spearheading with Latina workers. Leo had great advice and research and resources, and so we asked him to be on the podcast. And so Leo, can you tell us a little bit about your family background? Because, currently, we are in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month. Tell us a little bit about your family and where you grew up.

Leo Pacheco: Absolutely. My family's from Puerto Rico. I grew up in Miami my entire life. Visited Florida nine years ago, Sarasota area, fell in love with it. And so my wife and I moved here, and that's when I joined a Beacon family.

So as a Puerto Rican, I always have identified with that mindset of the underrepresented voice coming from a different background.

Dr. Alexandria White: How does that show up in your leadership skills at the branch?

Leo Pacheco: So our culture is one that prides itself on hard work. So as a leader at Beacon, I push myself, I push my team, colleagues, everyone around me to go the extra mile, to push a little harder. I provide any mentoring or coaching. I help with educating, such as getting enrolled in ESL classes to learn the language, things of that nature.

Dr. Alexandria White:    We've got to unpack those things, Leo. You said mentoring, you said education, and you help some of your employees become better English speakers. Tell me about some of those results. I know you've got some good results or some good examples of where those things lined up and you've got some success stories. So let's hear them.

Leo Pacheco:                Absolutely. I have a particular employee from Cuba. He came here by himself, left his wife and his two children in Cuba, came to America like everybody else to live the American Dream. Very hard worker. I helped enroll him into English speaking classes. I also was there for a walkthrough when he was doing an inspection, purchasing his first home. I helped him with some of the closing documents. He actually just brought his wife and his children from Cuba just last week.

Dr. Alexandria White:  Amazing. Leo-

Leo Pacheco: That is pretty amazing. I actually have chills just talking about it.

Dr. Alexandria White: I'm getting goosebumps. That is leadership in action. That is empathetic leadership in action. So to the people managers, to the C-Suite members, everyone who's listening, to the business leaders who are listening, you see how being impactful and intentional can go a long way and help build a family. I remember in the introduction, you said Beacon family. What does that mean to you?

Leo Pacheco: It actually goes towards our core values as well. We put people first are one of our core values at Beacon.

Dr. Alexandria White: Yes.

Leo Pacheco: And I emphatically believe in that, putting people first, and not just as a Latino, just human race, always, always airing on the side of this person's a good person, wanting to see the good in everything and the positive in everything.

Dr. Alexandria White: Right.

Leo Pacheco: That's just part of the way I was brought up. The culture is more of a glass half full type of culture.

Dr. Alexandria White: Me, too. I'm a glass half full person. I'm a very optimistic. So you talked about you're Puerto Rican heritage. You talked about your branch, how you help people who might need help translating documents. So what advice do you have for a branch manager, a leader, someone who is on a search committee, who is trying to actively recruit Latino workers? What advice do you have for them?

Leo Pacheco: irst and foremost, make an attempt to learn the language. That's my same advice, vice versa to all of my Latino, all my Hispanic employees that come here, is learn English.

Dr. Alexandria White: Correct.

Leo Pacheco: To all those leaders, learn Spanish. Attempt it even if it's not great. Well, guess what? The English is not that great either. But the attempt is something that we hold dearly, wholeheartedly that at least there was an effort to be made. You're making an attempt to reach out, to connect. Also, accept that different is not bad and things that are unfamiliar, sometimes they're beneficial.

Dr. Alexandria White: Definitely. I love all of that advice. You're a leader. You've helped people. You've gave a great success story. Now, who helps you? Mentorship is very important. You're a leader, but you also need someone to look up to and bounce ideas off of and receive balanced feedback. So can you tell me a little bit how mentorship has shaped your career? And if you'd like to name drop, that works, too.

Leo Pacheco: If I had to name drop somebody, it would be my mom.

Dr. Alexandria White: Aw.

Leo Pacheco: Yvonne Perez provided me with the best life that she could possibly, coming from Puerto Rico and just teaching me right and wrong, not just what's legal or not, but what's moral, and being able to put people first, being able to always look out, help out. She always used to say, "Where four people can eat, really five people can eat. So go ahead and invite your friend over for dinner if he needs to."

So those lifelong lessons have helped build my character. I've been able to mentor a few people and I just spread that advice. And it's very rewarding to see some of the things that have happened to some of the people that I've mentored.

Dr. Alexandria White: Wow. She sounds like a amazing woman, and she has done a good job with you. We know that you are Hispanic year round, 365. It's just not from September to October. And so how has this month, or is there anything particular that you do in this month to celebrate your culture, or you're like, "Hey, I'm Puerto Rican year round. There's things that I do?" Is there anything specific that you do or that you've seen other companies do?

Leo Pacheco: It's more the latter. I love this time of year.

Dr. Alexandria White: Okay.

Leo Pacheco: I love that the Latin culture is being celebrated.

Dr. Alexandria White: That's right.

Leo Pacheco: I truly do. And it's about time. But we celebrate every day. We celebrate our successes. We celebrate all of our achievements. It's important to recognize all of those accomplishments month after month, week after week. So, yeah, even though it's great that we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month now in September, I really want there to be a sense of inclusion all year round.

Dr. Alexandria White: I completely agree. Well, that is our time together, Leo. It has been great. Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Leo Pacheco: Actually, no, Dr. Wright. I appreciate the opportunity of being on your podcast. I look forward to working with you more in the future, and I think this is a great, great, great thing we're doing here.

Dr. Alexandria White: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing this space with me. Have a great day, Leo.

Leo Pacheco: Thank you so much.