By Jennifer Perez
Michael Hernandez is just 32 years old but he’s already the Director of Communications for Miami-Dade- the youngest in the history of the county. Since Hernandez knew he was interested in writing and politics, he minored in Communications and majored in Political Science.
Starting out in a small firm, Hernandez worked hard to get where he is today. Part of his success came from having an idea of what he wanted to do and being ambitious, and the other part came from working hard early on. Hernandez worked on several big projects like working for President Barack Obama, and is happy working for Mayor Gimemez now.
When Hernandez was first appointed Director, he replaced much of his team with younger workers. Given the importance of social media these days, younger turned out to be better. While he acknowledged that social media is not a substitute for face to face, he emphasized that it’s important to embrace technology.
“The press release is going the way of the dinosaur,” he said. Press releases are longer and take more time to get out than a tweet. With only 140 characters and so many Twitter users, it’s more effective to share information over social media.
As someone who wrote for free for the Beacon student Newspaper of FIU, Hernandez knows the importance of getting involved and getting experience.
“It’s not just the degree you have, it’s what you did in your extracurricular time,” he said, placing emphasis on volunteering and internships, even if unpaid, as quick ways to get involved.
“Speaking Spanish and being able to communicate it, that has been my ticket,” said Hernandez, amounting a lot of his success on being bilingual. He advised those in the class not to lose speaking Spanish because it’s come in handy for him many times in his life.
Something Hernandez talked a lot about was age.
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re too young,” he said. “You don’t know how long you have, you have to make your impact.”
He advised challenging yourself and using your time wisely to get ahead. Outworking everyone else is difficult, but needs to be done. Hernandez refuses to be outworked, instead working long hours and keeping up on things.
“When everyone else is partying, you need to be working.”
