Meet Senior Manager Humberto Sanchez, who is passionate about helping a major Ohio municipal government and local nonprofits serve their constituents through secure, efficient technology and systems.
Cities have a simple mission: to invest tax revenue in services that create safe, healthy places to live.
But as Centric’s Humberto Sanchez knows, providing even the most basic services requires countless complex systems — and every citizen must play their part.
Sanchez is Centric Consulting’s account manager for a city in Ohio. He started with Centric as a contract employee in 2022 to help create the first website for one of the city’s municipal utilities. Today, as a full-time employee, he oversees city’s account, including business development, account financials, and billable work as a project manager.
“I love my work because I get to meet a lot of people in the city, and I get to learn how things function inside, all that work that’s supported by tax dollars,” Sanchez said. “The city’s mission is not dollar-based. Instead, it is about providing efficient services and creating a thriving community for residents.”
For Sanchez, seeing the inner workings of municipal government firsthand has given him a new appreciation for the role he plays as a 40-plus year resident of the greater Cleveland area.
“It’s made me more aware of the impact of simple things, like getting rid of trash,” he said. “When I put my leaves in the yard waste bin, sort my recyclables and put them in the right place, or dispose of paint safely, I know I’m doing my part to help this big, complex system run smoothly.”
Sanchez moved to Cleveland from Venezuela in 1981 to attend college at Case Western Reserve University. At that time, his oil-rich homeland was still adjusting to President Carlos Andrés Pérez’s nationalization of the oil industry when an oil glut hit. The economy shrank as oil prices dropped, leading to shortages of the goods and services Americans take for granted.
“Even in the midst of those shortages, it was hard for many Venezuelans to imagine uprooting their entire families and moving away from home,” Sanchez said. “I was the youngest in my family and the only one to go to the U.S. to study. The rest of my family is still in Venezuela.”
Before arriving in the States, Sanchez’s academic interest was marine biology. However, at Case Western, two fields were pulled at him: computer and systems engineering. The three areas have more in common than you might think, he noted.
“Everything is a system,” Sanchez said. “Even in biology, if you think about how we develop, it’s a long process of increasingly complex systems coming together so we can do simple things, like lift a fork to your mouth. Systems and computer engineering are similar, and the result of all our complex technology is intended to make our lives simpler.”
In the end, computer engineering won out. The night before his commencement ceremony, he received an offer to become a test engineer with a leading PC memory and graphic board manufacturer. It would be his first full-time job.
Those were the early days of personal computers and a precursor to today’s information technology industry. He continued with the company as it grew, rising to become a project engineer to work with engineering, marketing, and sales on the release of new products. When the company moved to Colorado, Sanchez joined a consulting firm where he specialized in the Lotus Notes email platform.
One of those clients was the Northeast Ohio Sewer District, his first glance at the public sector and the provision of vital city services. He joined as a project manager and went on to become a director of IT, preparing him well for his future role at Centric.
All the while, Sanchez continued his education. In 2006, he earned his MBA from Cleveland State University, and his mind soon turned to helping others through volunteer work in addition to his professional capacity.
“It used to be that nonprofit boards were mainly composed of people with legal or financial skills, but now they are interested in technical governance, too,” he noted.
Sanchez first joined the board of a nursing home with a large endowment that provided grants to serve the elderly. The nursing home needed his help to expand its technology footprint to interface with hospitals, a job that required a great focus on data security. Eventually, his role included operations and finances for the nursing home.
In 2014, Sanchez discovered Esperanza, a Cleveland organization with the mission of helping Hispanic students to succeed in high school.
“Having come from Venezuela to attend college in the U.S., I could relate to that mission. But my experience allowed me to contribute to the creation of a program at Esperanza to help those students succeed in college, too,” he said.
Soon after starting at Esperanza, Sanchez began dedicating more time to another passion: culinary arts. He became a pastry chef and even worked in a restaurant — which he described as “managing chaos.” Still, he was committed to the craft.
“I’ve always loved cooking, and I still strive to create the perfect pastry,” he said. “It takes a high level of skill and creativity, which I enjoy.”
But even as much as he loves Cleveland and has enjoyed success in multiple areas, Sanchez misses his family in Venezuela.
“It’s hard because my family is always at the back of my mind,” he said. “I am very much in touch with them,” Sanchez said.
Technology allows the family to stay in touch, especially with his sister. As for Venezuelans in the U.S., Sanchez noted that contrary to what is said in the media, about half of them are college-degreed professionals working in lower-paying fields to create a safe future for their children.
“I want to support my family in Venezuela,” Sanchez concluded. “They are safe, but it’s hard to hear about what’s going on under the current regime when I contrast it with my life here. But they are never far from my heart.”