Joel Barrera, Co-Founder and Executive Director
Joel Barrera is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Commonwealth Seminar, a program designed to open the doors of the State House to immigrant leaders and leaders from communities of color. In addition, Barrera is the Senior Project Director at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, where he brings together the region’s mayors through the Metro Mayors Coalition to work together on issues of common interest.
The Commonwealth Seminar provides in-depth training on how the legislature works, provides regular networking opportunities for diverse leaders to interact with high-level state officials, and promotes public service job opportunities through an online jobs bank. The program is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2008.
Barrera was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to serve on the board of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which provides water and wastewater services to more than 2.5 million people in Massachusetts. In addition, Barrera serves on the boards of the Metrowest Community Health Care Foundation, Third Sector New England, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, and the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership.
Barrera lives in Natick, Massachusetts with Mari, his wife, and two children, Milagros and James. He was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and has degrees from Princeton University and Oxford University. Prior to his current positions, Barrera served for six years in the Massachusetts Senate as Director of the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Bureau and as a community organizer along the Texas-Mexico border helping immigrant families bring potable water and wastewater services to their neighborhoods.
Jarrett T. Barrios, Co-Founder
Jarrett Tomás Barrios serves as the president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. Barrios understands the health of the Commonwealth’s residents and their ability to access health care–including health insurance--to persist as principal challenges for Massachusetts.
A graduate of Harvard College (’90-’91) and Georgetown University Law Center (’95), Jarrett worked for the Boston City Council, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and the law firms of Hill & Barlow and DLA Piper. In 1998 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and then to the State Senate in 2002 where he was the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.
“An open hand holds little water,” says Barrios. “Philanthropy is the joining of many open hands, together capable of holding an ocean.” His past work on health and wellness, as well as for other forms of individual empowerment--against violence, for education, for consumer protection to name a few—inform his current work. He speaks English and Spanish, and is proficient in Portuguese.
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