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Born in Argentina in 1980, my family immigrated to the US the following year. I moved around a lot as a kid, living in Miami, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and growing up primarily in San Antonio, Texas.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2001, I went to Washington, DC where I interned at the Smithsonian Institution. Then I stayed for an additional two years in that city. During that time, I worked for a start-up non-profit organization and also for DC Public Library.
In 2003, I joined the Peace Corps and was deployed by the US government to Honduras where I worked in the town of San Manuel de Colohete, which at the time had the lowest human development index score in the country according to the United Nations. It was during my time in Honduras that I met my current wife Gloria. We got married and while we handled paperwork for her to come back with me to the United States I taught 11th and 12th grade history at the American School of Tegucigalpa.
In 2005, I moved back to Washington, DC where I briefly studied National Security Policy at George Washington University. Although intellectually stimulating, I sensed that psychologically and emotionally I wasn’t a good fit for that program, so I withdrew. I reconnected with previous contacts I’d made at DC Public Library and they not only offered me a job but offered to pay for me to go to graduate school and get a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science. That’s how I became a librarian and started my career in libraries. Since then, I’ve worked my way up the professional ranks. I managed library branches in Washington, DC and San Antonio, Texas.
Eventually, I was moved into higher administration and was responsible for managing technology needs and projects for the San Antonio Public Library, which had nearly 30 locations and served a population 1.8 million people. All the while, my family was growing and Gloria and had two children: Matias and Sofia. In 2017, I decided I needed a challenge. I wanted to keep growing professionally and explore other aspects of library administration that went beyond technology. I cast a really wide net and learned about a Public Service Manager opportunity in Prince George, BC. I obviously took the job and have been here ever since. My hobbies are soccer (FC Barcelona is my club), reading, traveling, and cooking.
LINKS/CONTACT INFO
EMAIL: ignacio.librarian@gmail.com
WEBSITE: www.pgpl.ca
