As the old saying goes “With great power comes great responsibility”.  Those words rang true to one Grossmont  student who evolved from an unconfident teenager to a more than confident leader.

In April 2013, 19-year-old  Esau Cortez was elected the ASGC President for the next 2013-2014 academic year. He stated that he has step up a couple of strategic plans to try to stabilize funding for the ASGC. His main priority is to bring back services that ASGC use to provide before funding was cut.

Cortez, a La Mesa native, was aspiring to become a neuropsychologist but  in his senior year of high school he  took a liking to politics and decided to pursue it in college.

He served an internship with at a local state senator’s office where he met other interns who were part of Cuyamaca’s Associated Students. “They asked me if I was a member of The Associated Students at Grossmont and I told them no,” said Cortez, “ they suggested that I join so I said ok I will and on November 10, 2011 I became an ASGC board member.” Cortez stated that he wanted to join ASGC to develop social skills and gain more confidence in himself and learn leadership skills.

Cortez’s  perception of leadership is,  “I see different types of leaders in everyone but to me a leader is someone who doesn’t lead but actually inspires others to be all that they can be, so I don’t think of myself as a leader, I’m just someone there to push other people to progress in their dreams and reach their true potential.”

Cortez has been involved in several  organizations on campus as well as ASGC. He also stated that at the beginning of his academic year  it was not easy juggling school, ASGC and  all the clubs he was involved in. “ I failed some classes but I don’t think of it as a loss because failing didn’t make me a failure instead I learned how to handle things better .”

Esau stated that he’s not going to allow 50 years of student’s  hard work to crumble on his watch. “As long as you have a solid team, you can go all the way and succeed.” said Esau.

Esau has won numerous awards for leadership. He was recently  awarded the Young Luminary of the Year at the 2013 San Diego Latino Champions Awards ceremony. Cortez stated, ” I don’t take pride in knowing that I have a lot awards I take pride in knowing far I have come from that low confident 17 year old video game obsessed kid to this very confident and goal oriented 19 year old.”

Esau is trying to create a Latino caucus in Region 10 and desires to serve as its president. The caucus would strive to inspire Latino students to pursue higher education.

After he completes his studies at Grossmont , Cortez will be transferring to the University of California San Diego and plans on joining their Associated Students. He plans to major in economics and minor in finance.