This is the 113th article in Bears Doing Big Thing, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
“Your life is not defined by how you do in high school. For my case, it just took a little more experience, a little more maturity to really figure out what I wanted to do, and then the desire to really pursue that,” Andrés Acevedo ’80 said. Acevedo is a senior management analyst for Valley Water, overseeing disaster preparedness and coordinating with the local fire departments.
At M-A, Acevedo played ultimate frisbee. “It wasn’t a formal athletic team in a conference or anything like that, but one of the teachers organized it, and we actually ended up playing against intramural college teams because there really weren’t any high school teams around,” he said.
Acevedo was also involved in the Explorer Scouts program, a section of Scouting—formerly known as Boy Scouts—that allows teenagers to discover their interests through career-focused activities in posts sponsored by different organizations. Throughout high school, he participated in the Medivac Paramedic Explorer program. “That’s what kind of introduced me into the world of the fire department and public safety in general,” Acevedo said.
In his senior year, Acevedo dropped out before his final semester to work as an emergency medical technician (EMT) and enrolled at the College of San Mateo (CSM). “I was just going part-time [to CSM], and I wasn’t really into it, maybe as much as I should have been,” he said. “I was taking fire science classes, which I enjoyed, but the general ed—I was not really doing.”
To pursue a career in public safety, Acevedo moved to Los Angeles in 1983 to attend the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital Paramedic School. He then came back to the Bay Area and began working as a paramedic in Oakland. “Working in Oakland was a different experience,” he said. “I saw many acts of violence, people in poverty, and a lot of people who maybe didn’t have a lot of money but had a strong family.”
After serving as a paramedic for several years, Acevedo decided to take a short break from his job to focus on his education and family. He returned to CSM full-time while working part-time as an EMT.
While at CSM, Acevedo interned with the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. “Anna Eshoo was on the board. That was where I first learned about public administration and public policy,” he said. “It had a big impact on my life.”
“It really opened my eyes to what local government does. I found it really fascinating working with a bunch of people who were very dedicated, focused on our local government, our local community, and that was what was driving them,” Acevedo added. “While they might have different opinions on how to do something and be opposed to one way or the other, you always get the sense that they’re basing their decisions on what they thought was best for the county and the community.”
Acevedo finished his Associate of Arts and Associate of Science degrees at CSM and then transferred to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “[It] was one of the few places that had a bachelor’s degree involved in emergency medical services,” he explained. “My goal at that time was to get a bachelor’s degree, go back to work in EMS, and work my way into more management roles.”
To get his bachelor’s, Acevedo was required to complete a semester-long internship, which he did with a fire department in Springfield, Ore. He also found a job at a local hospital after the internship ended.
Before his internship, Acevedo was selected for the Woodrow Wilson program, which aimed to increase diversity in public policy. As a part of the program, he attended the Junior Summer Institute at the University of Washington. “One of the professors who taught over the summer took me out to lunch and asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about applying to the Harvard Kennedy School?’” he said. “He really encouraged me to apply, and I probably wouldn’t have if not for that lunch.”
Around the same time, Acevedo was also accepted into the Coro Fellows Program in San Francisco—a nine-month leadership and public affairs program, prompting him to move back to the Bay Area to complete it.
Acevedo then applied to graduate schools and ultimately chose Harvard. “It was a great experience. People have either high school or college, where they make these lifelong friends, and that didn’t happen for me, but it happened for me in graduate school,” he said.
After graduating, Acevedo joined the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As a management trainee, he rotated through departments such as aviation, airfield security, and management and budget, worked for a time in Washington, D.C., and tested airport security. After working in the Management and Budget department for about three years, he decided to move back to the Bay Area with his girlfriend.
“We ended up getting an apartment in San Francisco. I got a job working for the mayor’s office, doing budget for about a year, and then got a job in the police department, in their budget office, and was there for a couple years,” Acevedo said.
Acevedo then transitioned to the Port of San Francisco in 2001, working in emergency management. “They hired a new homeland security director because of 9/11, and they didn’t give her any staff. So they asked me to help out, based on my background as a paramedic,” he said. “[I was] helping develop our own team at the Port that would manage an emergency and then also to help staff represent the Port at the city’s emergency operational center.”
After around 13 years with the Port of San Francisco, Acevedo got a job with San Jose State as their emergency manager. “There was a lot of transition there. I tell people I had five different bosses in the five years I was there,” he said. “COVID hit, and the leadership had changed within the department, and it wasn’t really a fun place to work at that point.”
“I was talking with some guy I know who worked for Menlo Fire. We’d known each other for a couple of years professionally. I said I was starting to look to make a change, and he said, ‘Oh, what timing? We’ve got an opening that’s going to open up soon. So keep your eye out for that,’” Acevedo said.
Acevedo ended up getting the job at the Menlo Park Fire Protection District as an emergency services specialist. “I liked the people I worked with, but I was doing a lot of work with the public and their CERT program,” he said. “The job was working away from emergency management and more into public education. So that wasn’t where my interest was.”
“I saw this opening at Valley Water. I didn’t spend that much time on the application. I kind of threw it together,” Acevedo said. “I got an interview, and I wasn’t really sweating the interview. And then I got a second interview, and they made me a job offer.”
Acevedo joined Valley Water in 2023, and currently works in the Office of Emergency Services. Valley Water is a government agency in Santa Clara County that provides clean water, flood protection, and protects the creeks and habitat in the county. He focuses on emergency exercises, training, and manages a program for emergency action plans for the creeks. Acevedo is also the liaison from the district to the local fire departments, coordinating training and tours for the local fire agencies.
“What I like about working with them is that I really have a lot of trust for them, which other places didn’t,” Acevedo said. “I like the fact that a lot of my role is developing partnerships. It’s working with other agencies and trying to find those opportunities where we can partner on exercises or other projects. Throughout my career, that’s always been something that I’ve strived to do, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of being able to do that.”
Acevedo’s advice for current M-A students: “Be willing to make jumps into other areas when the opportunities come up.”
To those interested in public safety: “Explore programs. Look around for that, because you get some hands-on training and they really try to educate you on what the job is about. It’s a great way to get to know people.”
