Undergraduate Keynote Speaker
Hilda L. Solis
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis was confirmed on February 24, 2009, as the 25th Labor Secretary. She is the first Latina cabinet member of any presidential administration and the nation’s first Hispanic Labor Secretary.
From 2001 to 2009, Secretary Solis served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her priorities included expanding access to affordable health care, protecting the environment, and improving the overall quality of life for working families. A leader on clean energy jobs, she authored the Green Jobs Act which provided funding for “green collar” job training for veterans, displaced workers, at-risk youth, and families in underserved communities.
Her California environmental justice legislation, enacted in 1999, was the first of its kind in the nation to become law and secured protections for disenfranchised minority workers. For her trailblazing work on environmental justice issues, Solis became the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000.
In 1994, she made history by becoming the first Latina elected to the California State Senate. As the chairwoman of the California Senate Industrial Relations Committee, she led the battle to increase the state's minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour and authored seventeen state laws aimed at combating domestic violence.
Secretary Solis is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and earned a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Southern California.