Tennessean interviews Ramon Cisneros of Tennessee Hispanic Chamber

The Tennessean posted this interview of Ramon Cisneros, president of the Tennessee Hispanic Chamber of Commerce*.

Here is an excerpt:

In 1975, I came here to attend college. I was fresh out of high school. I stayed at UT-Martin for a couple of years, and then in 1977 I moved to Orlando, Florida, and graduated in environmental engineering from Central Florida.

I was in a very small town at UT-Martin. But because they had a big English as a second language program at the time, there were about 600 international students there, about 120 of them from Venezuela. At first, it was a pretty big cultural shock, because it's a rural area there, and the people weren't used to having foreigners around. But when we started buying in the stores, and things like that, the businesses started realizing this was an interesting group of people.

Right after graduation, or a couple of weeks later, I moved back to Venezuela and worked there for 11 years, until 1991. I started working with Exxon in the area of oil spills and environmental issues. I also attended college in Venezuela and got a master's degree in marketing during that time.

Cisneros was also profiled by the Nashville Business Journal in 2003 (story here).