Gabriel Estrada

My Life in a Nutshell

Early Overachiever

●Good student! Earned mostly As and Bs at Miramonte

Elementary School.

●In sixth grade I became the fastest kid in school by winning gold

in our school Olympics!

●I was also the most artistic student in school and won classes to

an Art Academy in East Los Angeles in 5th grade.

Look Ma! I'm in the paper!

I'm an All-star!

When I started playing baseball at age 9 I barely knew how to catch

and run the bases! Hard work and practice pays off though. In my last

year, I was a starting pitcher for the El Monte All American All-star

team in 1994.

2nd row, 2nd kid

from the right :-)

The Artist Inside Me

I was 10 years old when I joined the Academia de

Arte Yepes in East Los Angeles, taught by George

Yepes. I learned so much from Yepes.

Artist George Yepes

Most importantly, he

taught me not to be

scared to take chances

and "mess things up."

After all, it was only

paint.

Art Recognition

From Student to Teacher

After seven years in the Art

Academy, Yepes gave me the

title of Master Painter.

Every other Saturday, my dad

would drive me to Moffett

Elementary in Lennox, CA and

Miramonte Elementary in El

Monte, CA to teach kids how to

paint murals.

It was a good feeling giving back

to others what I had learned from

Yepes.

Most Outstanding Male Student

●In 8th grade I took my English teacher's advice and joined the

Academic Decathlon team. Thank you Mrs. Smith!

●I earned gold for Language and Literature, and Mathematics. I

earned bronze in the Social Science category. Our team earned

silver overall.

●During the 8th grade graduation ceremony I was awarded Most

Outstanding Male Student for the 1995-96 academic school year.

Smart Jock●I earned a 3.7 GPA in high school and started in the Varsity football

team after my freshman year (#70).

●We won three CIF championships from 1997-1999.

●I was awarded All-League offensive lineman my senior year.

I have a lot more of

these ;-)

High School Sweethearts

●I met my beautiful wife when I

was 14 yrs old.

●Since then we have been

inseparable...like two peas in a

pod.

●Our Senior year we won

Homecoming King & Queen

and surprisingly also Prom King

& Queen later that year.

The College Years

●I was accepted to the University of

California Riverside in 2000.

●Made the Dean's Honor List several

times and one year I made the

Chancellor's Honor List!

●I was a member of Tau Beta Pi,

Engineering Honor Society, and also

the Society of Hispanic Professional

Engineers.

●I graduated in 2005.

After College...

●Accepted to the Computer Science Masters program at UC

Riverside.

●Got a part-time job as an IT Specialist at A&R Tarpaulins, Inc. in

Fontana.

●Was doing great in school and job but decided to take a huge risk

and pursue a personal goal of starting my own IT business...

My future wife dropped off some lunch for

me. I was in the computer science lab all

day!

Entrepreneurial Spirit

●Started my own IT Business, InTouch

Computer Solutions (2007-2009).

Back to School (Kinda)

Got offered the position of Communications & Technology Specialist

for my alma mater in January 2010.

I was primarily responsible for the strategic development of electronic

communications for the Office of Alumni & Constituent Relations.

UCR Alumni & Visitors Center

Notable Accomplishments at UCR

Redesigned the Alumni Association website to make it easier

for alumni and constituents to find information and reconnect

with the University.

Improved Website Traffic

Jan 15 - Feb 15, 2010 Jan 15 - Feb 15, 2011

Increased Facebook Fans & Activity

Improved E-Newsletter

After months of meetings and

trying new ideas, the Alumni

e-newsletter open-rate

increased from 10% to 14%.

Among the contributing

factors were time of delivery,

topics, article placement, and

a simplified layout.

All Aboard!

In January 2012, I decided to pursue a new opportunity at

Loyola Law School in Downtown Los Angeles where I would be

a Web Developer.

After three weeks of driving in that infamous LA traffic, I decided to

start taking the train to work. It still takes 2 hours to get to work, but at

least I can just sit back and let someone else do the driving :-)

On the train, I’ll either take a nap,

listen to music, read news, or get

ahead start on my work for the

next day.

Baptism By Fire

Before I could get myself comfortable at the Law School, I was

already involved in a major project - the migration of the Law

School website.

It was a huge undertaking but I made it out alive! I worked

closely with the Communications & Marketing team as well as

third party designers and programmers to complete this giant

project.

At the end, after almost 12 months, we launched and it was a

success! The Law School was so proud.

The Fruit of My Labor

A few months after we launched

the new website, the Office of

Marketing & Communications

wanted a mobile site so they hired

a company, Kapow, to create a

responsive design.

I was responsible for

communicating our requirements

to Kapow and making sure they

delivered exactly what we wanted.

Loyola Law School Goes Mobile

I also...

● Migrated the Law School blogs

to Blogger

● Migrated the internal Law

School websites to Drupal,

including all web forms

Return Of The Entrepreneur

In Early 2013, I started to get business once again from an old

client of mine, Carbon Solutions, Inc. They had me redesign

their old website!

Then By Chance...

I got another job from the Judith Weston Studio For Actors &

Directors!

One Thing Lead To Another...

Judith Weston was so happy with the work I did for her that

she referred me to her friend Mandi Riggi which was in need

of a website for her new short film starring Jorge Garcia!

Which Lead To Another!

Then Mandi Riggi was so happy with the work I did that she

referred me to her friend Tamara Wilson to create a website in

honor of her father and comedian, Flip Wilson.

Fatherhood

September 7, 2013 was one of the greatest days of my life. It

was the day my daughter Mia Love Estrada was born :-)

This little person has given life a new meaning for me and has

given me even more motivation to be the best that I can be.

Promotion

On February 2015, I was promoted to Senior Web Developer.

More Opportunities

“The BIGGER the challenge, the BIGGER the

OPPORTUNITY” (well that’s at least the way I view it)

• The Law School was looking for a new Dean so the Dean Search

Committee asked for help in building a website so I did.

Right of Publicity Roadmap

In April 2015 I was given the opportunity to build a website for

law professor, Jennifer Rothman called Rothman’s Roadmap

to the Right of Publicity, which provides a 50-state survey of

right of publicity laws, breaking news and expert commentary.

Admissions Redesign

Because word got around that I built the Dean Search

website, I was given another opportunity to redesign the

Admissions website. I couldn’t say NO. It was a bold move.

Life’s Lesson

Just when you think you have everything figured out, you

realize you don’t.

It’s like the more you know, the more you realize you don’t

know.

For me, Life is all about trying to reach your true potential.

I won’t stop until I’m there – if there’s such a thing. Right now,

I’m focused on taking on new challenges that will help me

grow and get better. The rest is still unknown, but that’s ok, it

makes life exciting.

Or is it?