Private industry council head John Morales honored

In his last year in college, John Morales was afraid he couldn't find a job in education because, he was told, schools didn't need history majors such as him as teachers.

Then a new school opened in his hometown of Yuma, and it hired Morales. In the years to come, his aspirations would take him from the classroom to the upper levels of state government and then back to Yuma as head of a job training and placement agency.

For more than two decades, the former college student who once worried about his job prospects has helped others in Yuma County fulfill theirs.

Morales' efforts as executive director of the Yuma Private Industry Council and his contributions to education will be recognized Friday as one of 13 recipients of the Profiles of Success awards presented by Valle del Sol, a Phoenix-based social service agency.

Honoring Morales in the category of exemplary leadership, Valle del Sol cites not only his efforts in workforce development, but his participation in the Arizona Education Commitment, a statewide initiative that seeks to strengthen the education system to bring about economic prosperity, as well as his past service on the Governor's P-20 Education Council. He is also being recognized for his work with Valle del Sol in bringing a Latino leadership development program to Yuma County starting this fall.

“It's been a great ride,” Morales said recently, reflecting on his career. “I feel blessed.”

Morales, whose parents immigrated as children from Mexico to Somerton in the first half of the 20th century, grew up in Yuma. Graduating from high school, he went on to Arizona State University, where he majored in history and minored in geography with the idea of being a teacher. In that era, he recalled, the priority of schools was hiring teachers for English, math and the sciences.

“I thought, ‘I have no chance. I'm going to be unemployed the rest of my life.'”

But at the time, Woodard Junior High School was under construction and then-Yuma Elementary School superintendent Pete Woodard — for whom the school was named — was looking for teachers for it. Woodard knew Morales and knew he was studying toward a career in education, and he was offered a job as a social studies teacher.

“I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” Morales said.

His years in the classroom “were a great learning experience,” but he found a new passion after taking part in a Ford Foundation program that developed Hispanic leaders in rural areas of the Southwest. The program exposed him to the roles of a range of government agencies and nonprofit organizations, and led him to a career in public service.

He served in various state-funded economic development and job training programs in 1970s and 1980s during the administrations of Democratic Govs. Raul Castro and Bruce Babbitt, and ultimately rose to become director of buildings and grounds, a position in which he oversaw maintenance of state government's facilities.

He lost that position in 1987 when Republican Gov. Evan Mecham came to office and brought in his own team of administrators. But a new opportunity arose when the position of Yuma County director of the Job Training Partnership Act opened.

The program was supported with federal funds and administered by the county, and the board of supervisors named Morales to the position in 1988.

The program later became the Yuma Private Industry Council, a private nonprofit organization that serves the dual mission of helping the area residents gains the skills they need to find jobs and of recruiting able workers for the area's employers.

“I believe it's the best move I've ever made professionally,” he said. “I think this was destined for me.”