TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 9 12 MAJOR GENERAL RICK NORIEGA has been CEO of Ronald McDonald House Houston for two years following an impressive career in public service. He spent a decade in the Texas legislature representing Houston's east side, served in Afghanistan and oversaw the conversion of the George R. Brown Convention Center into a massive shelter as Houston welcomed Hurricane Katrina evacuees in 2005. The native Houstonian discusses how his experiences have influenced his leadership and what's next for Ronald McDonald House Houston. Q | During your time in the Texas legislature, you were the primary author of the Texas Dream Act, which provides in-state college tuition for undocumented immigrants who have lived in the state for three years before graduat- ing from high school or receiv- ing a GED and are seeking legal status. How did that come about? A | That's what I'm going to have on my tombstone. Being a person called to public service, sometimes it's as simple as someone calling your office to say they can't get into Houston Community College because they're an immigrant kid—a Salvadoran refugee—and the college is trying to charge inter- national tuition. He was trying to do the right thing and go through the process. He wanted to be an aviation mechanic. His dream was to work for Boeing. I thought: This is probably not unusual—especially in the district I represented [East End/ Ship Channel area]—and how many other kids are affected? I had the University of Houston do a survey by a demographer asking some questions to see the depth of the issue. The political dynamic at the time in Texas was that Rick Perry had ascended to the governorship from lieutenant governor after George W. Bush became president, so he had yet to run a race for gov- ernor. Under the radar in 2001, the governor signs the bill. Q | So, what happened to the young man who sparked the Texas Dream Act? A | Rosendo Ticas is an aviation mechanic today. He's married and has three kids. He owns a house and a rental house. He became a citizen and voted in the last presidential election. Q | Readers also might remember your role in Houston's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A | At the time, I was on leave from deployment in Afghanistan and tri-hatted, serving as a state repre- sentative, a traditional Guardsman and working for CenterPoint Energy in the economic development department. I had been home for a few weeks in the summer of 2005 burning my leave time going to the beach, then Katrina and Rita hit. The Astrodome was about filled up and Mayor Bill White decided to open up the convention center. I was invited to the meeting and they said I was going to run things as incident commander. I walked through the convention center around 10 a.m. and by 6 p.m., buses were rolling in. People were wet and everything, coming directly from New Orleans and the Superdome. It's pretty amazing what this city is capable of. It was remarkable. Q | How did you connect with Ronald McDonald House Houston? A | In civilian life, I had retired from another nonprofit in San Antonio, AVANCE, and returned to Houston in May 2017 to take care of my mother, who will be 88 in September. She was by herself and my siblings were out of town. I had a little over a year before my Army retirement and I had made brigadier general, so I was being asked to do more. I was going to turn over rocks for a while in Houston when I got approached for this opportunity in the spring of 2017. I started in July 2017. Q | You began your tenure by guiding the expansion of Holcombe House, the tempo- rary residence for sick children and their families that now offers 70 rooms. A month later, Hurricane Harvey hit amid con- struction. How did you manage that crisis? A | We set a decision point for families about two days out: Are you going to go to the hospital, go home, stay with a friend or are you going to stay here with us and wait it out? We got in our workroom, called in all our employees, pulled out our emergency plan and went through it line by line. Who's going to do what? Who's going to be where? All the generators were gassed up and we moved the [portable toilets] out so that they wouldn't become projectiles. I headed back to Austin in my role with the Texas Army National Guard and we huddled on calls every morning. The water came up on the back patio, if that. Topographically, we are on the high point of the Texas Medical Center. We were super-proud of the fact that we maintained operations during Spotlight

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