The Duchess Standard.

The thing is, doubt is quiet and convincing.

Choosing to move forward meant returning to my roots.

Today, I’m proud to announce the launch of Duchess Cleaning Company LLC, offering professional residential and commercial cleaning services.

I built Duchess to create opportunity and serve others. The vision is to scale over time, but the foundation is personal.

The name is a tribute to my dog, Duchess, and a reminder of how I choose to show up in my work and leadership.

In a time when immigrant contributions are often questioned, it’s important to acknowledge their role in building this country. I am the son of immigrant parents.

In my culture, starting a business is how we’ve built our own table. It’s an inheritance born from necessity.

As a first-generation Mexican American, I learned the value of work long before I knew what entrepreneurship was.

Across many Mexican families, entrepreneurship often shows up as service-based work. It’s built on skill, resilience, and care rather than capital or formal credentials.

I am the son of immigrant farmworkers and the grandson of farmers in Mexico. My roots are in people who taught me that love can live in effort, and not always in words.

I’ve had the privilege of moving through classrooms, corporate offices, and into advanced degrees. I carry my parents with me into every room I enter.

No matter how far I’ve gone academically or professionally, I stay grounded in where I come from.

Service has always been central to how we survive, provide, and care for one another.

I worked my first paid job at eight, picking cherries in Washington State with my family. Those long days taught me patience and gave me space to imagine a future beyond the fields.

By nine, I was working alongside my dad in his landscaping business.

I often complained, but he would always say, “No le tengas miedo al trabajo” — don’t be afraid of hard work.

By ten, I was taking on odd jobs in the neighborhood, balancing school and work. I didn’t fully understand the lessons behind my dad’s words then, but that phrase stayed with me and has guided my life ever since.

Looking back, I expected to follow a traditional path through school and into a profession, but something was missing.

The eight-year-old version of me never stopped imagining what it would be like to build something of my own. Even then, I understood that my story could have taken a different path.

I earned my MBA during a time of change. When the path into the business world didn’t open the way I expected, I didn’t wait for it. I used what I’d learned to work my way into rooms I wasn’t invited to.

Those values became the foundation of what I call the Duchess Standard.

This journey wouldn’t exist without the people who helped shape it.

I thank God for opening the doors that led me here and for placing the right people in my life along the way.

I want to thank Maria Garcia for helping me find my voice and reshape how I understand leadership.

To my two sisters and my girlfriend, thank you for believing in my crazy ideas long before they ever made sense on paper.

To Kellstadt Business School, for giving me the tools to turn my vision into execution, and to Lauren Schmidt, City Colleges of Chicago, and Professor Jeffrey Hoyle for the opportunity to be part of the second cohort of the NextGen Sales Program.

I’m Mexican American.

I live between two worlds, not always fully accepted in one and only knowing the other through my parents’ memories. Still, I carry my culture with pride, and I am a proud American.

To my dad, this is all because of you. It took me a long time to realize the foundation you gave me was already enough to dream bigger than I was taught. Once I understood that, my past and future finally felt aligned.

The future doesn’t always come with a roadmap.