By Roberto Hugo Gonzalez
As originally published in Texas Border Business newsprint Edition
Arturo Guajardo Jr. is an easily recognizable name. He has been with the County of Hidalgo more than fifteen years. He served the first eight years as Chief of Staff and now as County Clerk elected by popular election.
His many years of experience have helped him to bring numerous improvements to the County Clerk’s office. His main responsibility is to keep the records in order to better serve the residents of the County.
“As you know we are the official record keepers for the County of Hidalgo and a lot of those were on paper back in the day. We have since migrated all those paper documents to digital format,” he said. “This was a labor intensive project,” he added.
“Today, if anybody comes in looking for documents, those can be accessed immediately,” he said.
Now, Guajardo has another monumental task and that is to permanently preserve the original paper records as well. “I am about a quarter done with this project and I feel that I cannot leave this office until I conclude this preservation project” he said.
Guajardo told Texas Border Business that this is why he is seeking reelection, aside from enjoying serving the public.
“By nature of the business, the work that I do here at the County Clerk’s office automatically affiliates me with good times in people’s lives and that is a satisfying feeling for me when I go home at the end of the day.”
Since its inception, the Clerk’s office has been visited by thousands of people. “People come to me for their marriage license, when their child is born to get a birth certificate, when opening a business to register the business name, for wine, beer and liquor licenses, and when they pay off their home mortgage,” he explained.
Guajardo pointed out that he wants the clerk’s office to be a model for the State of Texas, which according to him, it has been for the past seven years. “People from across the state of Texas come to our office to find out how we work because they hear good things about how we run the Clerk’s office.”
Guajardo is also constantly reminding his personnel how important it is to serve the public and requires that the service provided is always the best. “The public that walks into this office are the people that pay our salaries,” he said.
He explained that large companies sometimes do not provide good courteous service and in many occasions the public is put on hold or people are forced to talk to a computer. “I am doing everything possible to preserve the professional face to face service that we all grew up with,” he emphasized.
Guajardo was elected to the County Clerk’s position in 2006 and took possession of the office in January of 2007. During the election, he had three opponents seeking the County Clerk’s office and Guajardo won by obtaining 51% of the vote. The second time around, he ran an unopposed election.
Generally, people in Hidalgo County have high regard for the County Clerk’s office. Guajardo and his team have made important changes creating a model system enviable by other similar offices.
Guajardo has been married for the last 19 years to Denise; she is a teacher. “We have two beautiful daughters, Kelly Breana and Kayla Carin,” he said.
He told Texas Border Business that he is seeking reelection to the Hidalgo County Clerk’s office because he feels proud of the work he has done. “I intend to finish the work that is pending because it is important to the public,” he said. TBB
Written by Roberto Hugo Gonzalez is the 2009 SBA Journalist of the Year Award Winner & The 2009 and 2012 Paul Harris Award recipient.
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