Tony Herrera is trilingual.
He is fluent in English, his native Spanish and computer lingo.
He uses all those language skills to steer people onto the information highway as well as down other routes to help them in their careers, their education and even, occasionally, their personal lives.
Herrera, 39, of Lake Zurich is the manager of systems development for Ameritech in Hoffman Estates. He joined the company 17 years ago.
Six years ago he joined Hispanic Business Members of Ameritech (HBMA), an organization of about 150 Hispanic employees. Currently treasurer of the organization, he has served as membership chairman and handled a variety of other responsibilities, helping not only other Ameritech employees but community organizations and students.
In his living room at home are a telephone, a computer and a fax machine, which he uses when he works from home two days a week.
Those are the same tools he uses to provide information useful to people in their jobs and leisure time and to link up people and organizations who can help each other.
In February 1989, Herrera established what then was the only Hispanic and bilingual (Spanish and English) electronic bulletin board system in the United States.
Today, as part of the International BBS RIME (Bulletin Board System/Relaynet Information Message Exchange) network, members communicate with other members of HBMA, members of Hispanic organizations in other companies and members of bulletin boards across the United States, Spain and Bolivia.
It is not unusual to see messages on the system asking specific software and hardware questions, and very often it is Herrera himself jumping in with an answer or a referral.
Requests also appear from bulletin board members seeking help for not-for-profit agencies that need computer expertise. Herrera, again, usually is the person to jump in with advice.
With everyone jumping on the Internet, the international electronic highway by which people all over the world communicate, perhaps it doesn’t sound all that remarkable.
What makes Herrera’s contribution special, however, is the nature of the material he puts on the board. And he continues this work in the community.
Each month, Herrera publishes a list of Hispanic cultural events taking place throughout the Chicago area. He gathers this information from the state, the City of Chicago, local colleges and universities, the Chicago Public Library, newspapers and individuals who pass along information to him. The calendar is often several pages long.
He began publishing the list internally for HBMA before the bulletin board began, but he added it as a feature so members could just dial in and get the information.
Today he has a list of 140 people outside the organization who receive it via fax.
“I send it to other organizations in other corporations, and they disseminate it,” he said. “I also send it to some professors in universities and colleges who pass it on to their students.”
Herrera himself loves the Hispanic culture, having come from Queretaro, Mexico, the smallest state in that country.
“There is so much history there, so many different things going on,” he said.
Although he personally cannot attend most of the events, he thinks it is important to let people know what is out there so Hispanics can continue to stay connected to their culture and non-Hispanics can learn more about it.
He also coordinates requests for help on the system, such as when a member knew of a not-for-profit health clinic in Chicago looking for some volunteer computer expertise.
But Herrera doesn’t just do it all with a keyboard. He gets out and gets the job done personally.
For four years he participated in “Bridging the Gap: The Transition from School to Work,” a mentorship program for Hispanic students at high risk of dropping out at Chicago’s Benito Juarez High School, where the dropout rate was about 50 percent.
The program is coordinated by the Chicago Teacher’s Center of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.
“Tony was instrumental in bringing in enough mentors, so we exceeded the number of mentors we said we would have,” said Richard Rutschman, project director of the program for Northeastern.
“The program has resulted in higher grade-point averages and better attendance,” Rutschman said. “We are hoping to expand the program to other schools, so people like Tony are really important.”
Herrera likes to work with students because he enjoys it but also because he believes that youth, especially Hispanic youth, need positive role models.
“When I was young, I did not have a lot of people; I did have my mom and dad and brothers and sisters, but we didn’t have an extended family; we were the only ones who came from Mexico,” he said. “Kids need help from those who have been there. They need to know what the stepping stones are, what the obstacles are and how to get around them.”
Since his transfer to Hoffman Estates from Chicago a little more than a year ago, Herrera has discontinued his own work as a mentor, but he has brought in other people, Rutschman said, including a former student Herrera mentored who now works with computers.
Today Herrera does a lot of his work on the bulletin board and computer, but he has still found time to serve on HBMA’s scholarship committee. Last June the organization awarded scholarships for the first time to four college students who would not be able to stay in college without the financial help. He is serving on the committee again this year.
Currently he is working on a directory of Hispanic employee organizations, which he will share with all the corporations in the area that have them, again to increase the information link.
He also serves on the board of the Computer Association for the Contribution of Hispanic Excellence in Chicago, a group of computer professionals.
As busy as he is with his job and his family-he has a wife and two daughters-he still finds time to dedicate to the many activities. “I am trying to get Hispanics to increase their knowledge in the area of communications and give people the opportunity to communicate with people in this as well as unrelated fields,” he said. “The world is expanding, and we can’t let the information highway pass us (Hispanics) by.”
While much of the information he provides appears dry to those not acquainted with or enamored of computer jargon, some is of general interest. A common question, for instance, is how to get the keyboard to add accent marks over letters, which is needed in Spanish.
Meanwhile, he sits at his computer and waits for the next question to come in, and he’s loving every every byte of it.
