Tim Escobar. This is a name that many students have never heard before. However, this is a name that was once heard within the walls of this very campus.

This is a name that has emerged from within this community. This name belongs to a former student and a potential member of Congress.

Escobar is the Republican Congressional Candidate for the 39th district and is on the November ballot.

Tim Escobar is a man whose story is much like any other student’s in that he attended this school, rushed to these classes and worked hard in order to make a future for himself. Not only did Tim Escobar attend Cerritos College, so did his father, as well as his wife.

“My dad went here, so it has been a very important school. I went here in ’87….’87 ’til the fall of ’88. I took a lot of great classes here: accounting, political science, history, speech, English, and music appreciation,” Escobar said.

He attended Cerritos because his girlfriend went there. The couple decided to take courses at Cerritos together and eventually they got married.

Since his transfer in ’88, he has worked for H&R Block as an accountant, he has gone into to the military, started a family and now he intends to take politics head on by making a run for United States Congress.

“My desire to get involved (stems from the fact that) I joined the army at 19 years of age and became a flight officer candidate in a flight school. I finished up as an officer. That element of patriotism and service was instilled in me as a boy by my dad. My Dad was a Navy Veteran. My brother was a Navy Veteran as well,” Escobar commented.

He said he feels compelled to run for Congress in order to make a difference in the district where he grew up.

“This community is my community. It’s where I grew up! My wife has grown up here. I went to school here and worked here, my family lives here, cousins…so forth and so on. This whole little district from South Gate all the way to Lakewood and Downey up to Whittier is… is where I lived. We’re losing some good representatives here,” He said.

September 11 was a defining point in his career. It was at this time that Escobar, with the advice of his pastor and several prominent people in his life, decided to take up the responsibility to run for the congressional seat.

“This community was built on working families. That’s me. My dad was a phone man. My mom was a bank teller. I’m the last of five kids. I had to pay for college on my own. Life was difficult and challenging, but my parents always showed us hard work,” Escobar said.

Tim Escobar worked in aerospace and was eventually laid off. He had a wife, a five-month-old daughter.

“It was hard. It was hard, but see that’s what this district, this community has gone through. We know hard times. We also know good times. We also know there is hope because of education.” Escobar said. “I am currently a financial consultant. I work with different tools, but the same process. But that experience of being business, of being in labor, going through hard times, having a family and wanting the best for my children and being a military officer, all these things wrapped up together really tied in with my community involvement as present Chief of Commerce being involved with small businesses.”

He was a political science student here at Cerritos. “It was a good class. I took it in August of 1987. We discussed the design of our government, how it all worked, how it was supposed to work, the division of power and that such,” Escobar said.

“In the financial world, I have to be involved with current affairs, I have to be involved and knowledgeable of tax-cut history and all that affects us.”

Escobar will be continuing to campaign throughout the month of October and early November.

If you would like more information on Republican Congressional Candidate Tim Escobar his website is www.TimEscobar.com.