THOMAS A. FUENTES
Area 6: Includes Lake Forest, Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills and parts of Mission Viejo

Trustee Thomas A. Fuentes has been elected to three consecutive terms on the Board of Trustees since 2000.  He won re-election to a new four-year term through 2012.  He served as Clerk of the Board for five years.

Mr. Fuentes is a Senior Fellow with The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He is a director of Eagle Publishing, Inc., in Washington, D.C. President George W. Bush appointed him to his Administration as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation. Speaker Dennis Hastert of the United States House of Representatives first appointed Trustee Fuentes in 2006 to serve as his designee on the Board of Advisors of the United States Elections Assistance Commission in Washington, D.C. The federal panel oversees the expenditure of Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds across the nation. House Minority Leader, the Honorable John Beohner of Ohio, re-appointed Mr. Fuentes to a third term on the Board.

As a community college graduate himself, Mr. Fuentes is the first Hispanic in the history of the District to serve on the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees. He comments, “Community College Trustees represent the taxpayers to serve our students. We can be very proud that our District's conservative approach to management of the colleges provides quality higher education that everyone can afford.”

Mr. Fuentes serves on several community and national boards. He was the Chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County from 1984 to 2004. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Eagle Publishing, Inc. in Washington, D.C.  He has been the Chairman of the Board of Counselors of Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Claremont Institute, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Phillips Foundation.

Mr. Fuentes is the founding Chairman Emeritus of the Orange County Food Bank of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He is a Knight of Malta and a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.

Mr. Fuentes graduated from Santa Ana College, where he twice served as student body president. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Government from Chapman University and pursued post-graduate studies at Loyola Marymount University and St. Patrick's Seminary. He holds a degree of Doctor of Business Administration Honoris Causa from Pacific States University in Los Angeles. 

A sixth generation Californian, Mr. Fuentes resides in Lake Forest with his wife Jolene and their three children.  Contact Trustee Fuentes at the District offices by phone at 949-582-4844 or by mail at 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, CA 92692-3635.

[ Back to Board of Trustees ]