Alumni Spotlight Introducing...
Reuben Albert Duarte
’08 B.A. Legal Studies and Sociology
Pronoun:He/His
I'm a 36-year-old gay Latino male who is recently engaged! I grew up in the city of Visalia located in the Central Valley and currently live in Los Angeles. I work in the real estate development industry as a private sector urban planner. I provide private developers with technical planning and entitlement expertise.
What was your undergraduate life like at Cal? It was great! It's a cliche to say that college is the best time of your life but that doesn't make it less true. I came out as gay while at Cal and started dating. My time at Cal was a really important and special time for me because I was able to really explore who I was and the type of man I wanted to be.
What advice would you give your undergraduate self? Take the required math or stats course at Berkeley City College as opposed to taking them on campus.
Reuben Albert Duarte ’08 on the 50 Yard Line at Memorial Stadium
What life lessons did you learn at Cal that still impact your daily life? What is both a blessing and a curse of Berkeley (and most UC campuses) is that, while there are many resources available to students, they are not always clearly or even boldly advertised. As students, you need to push yourself to be comfortable to just ask for the help. This is an important lesson I even try to teach my younger colleagues I mentor and train. I want to see them work hard and try to solve issues independently, but I also want them to know that they should never feel so self-conscious that they cannot ask for help.
What are some current projects you are working on? I work as an urban planner representing private developers to help manage the local approval process for their developments, so there are literally a lot of projects I work on regularly. Some of the more exciting ones are not always the big flashy projects that typically make news or the blog world. These would include some of our smaller projects that are often affordable housing and/or supportive housing projects because they don't often fall neatly into a city's development regulations. This included a 44 unit mixed-use project in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. All 44 units are restricted affordable units and we helped the developer use the State Density Bonus law to not only receive a needed increase in the number of units, but it really helped the project deal with old development standards that would have otherwise made the project impossible. We were successful getting the project approved and I'm happy to see that construction has begun. Read more about the affordable housing project in the article,“More supportive housing breaks ground next to Mariachi Plaza.”
Reuben Albert Duarte ’08 and his close friend Brian Kawahara ’08 at a Cal vs. UCLA tailgate
How do you tap into your Cal Alumni network? I volunteer as the communications director for our local chapter, The Cal Alumni of Los Angeles. When time and work permit I attend and/or help host our events. I got involved with the Los Angeles Chapter many years ago because I wanted a place to meet other Cal graduates and a good bar to watch the Cal games. I'm still a Cal fan during college football season. Luckily, Cal largely takes over the bar "Busby's West" in Santa Monica, so much so that management will kick other schools' games off the TV when the Cal games start. I joined the chapter as its new Communications Director largely when our chapter's leadership was very small. I wanted to help grow the chapter since we know that Los Angeles has the largest concentration of Cal alumni outside of the Bay Area. The pandemic aside, I'm happy that the chapter did successfully grow and hopefully we can maintain these connections in a post-pandemic environment.
What is something that you’ve learned from being involved with your alumni chapter? People count on you when you say you're going to take on a task or project. Even if you're planning an alumni mixer and only one person shows up, it's another opportunity to teach yourself to follow through no matter what.
What else should we know about you? I strongly believe that Neapolitan ice cream is the greatest ice cream ever and I will die on this hill.
