www.negociosnow.com
February 2017 7
State Senator, Second District
Omar Aquino was born and
raised on the northwest side of
Chicago. Of Puerto Rican des-
cent, he grew up in a home of
public workers.
Aquino is a Chicago Public
Schools graduate who went on
to earn degrees in criminal jus-
tice and sociology from Loyola
University Chicago. In addition
to working multiple part-time
jobs while he was in college,
Aquino was President of the La-
tin American Student Organiza-
tion, a member of the Diversity
Council and co-founder of the
Empowerment Pipeline, an after
school mentorship program de-
signed to combat the school to
prison pipeline.
After graduating from Loyo-
la, Aquino worked as a bilingual
case manager in the Central
West Case Management Unit at
the Jane Addams School of So-
cial Work. He went to the homes
of elderly clients and assessed
their needs for services under
the Community Care Program,
which helps low income elderly
residents with homemaker ser-
vices, meals on wheels and adult
day service.
Seeing the needs of the el-
derly population inspired Omar
to get into policy work. He be-
came frustrated with weekly
memos from the Illinois De-
partment of Aging leadership
that reflected their lack of un-
derstanding about the impact of
their proposed policy changes.
He decided to work in govern-
ment to add a perspective from
those on the ground.
After working as a legis-
lative assistant in the Illinois
House of Representatives and
as Congresswoman Tammy
Duckworth's outreach coordi-
nator, he ran for retiring State
Sen. William Delgado's seat in
Illinois' second district, which
he won in 2016.
Senator
Omar Aquino, 29
Inspired
to serve
"L
uck can be defined as timing
meeting preparation. As you
may not always be able to control
the timing of events in life, you can
always be prepared. Create your
own luck."
