By The Star Staff
Gov. Jenniffer González Colón made her sixth round of appointments Sunday, naming Josué Rivera as the new secretary of the Department of Agriculture.
The appointment completes the constitutional Cabinet that will support the governor during this four-year term. The other appointments include: Eduardo Soria, an attorney and certified public accountant, as the executive director of the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience, commonly known as COR3; Dr. Regino Colón as the administrator of the Medical Services Administration; Enid Ortiz Rodríguez as the executive director of the State Insurance Fund Corp.; Wilma Ortiz Rivera as the head of the Families and Children Administration under the Family Department; Judge María del Mar Mateu Meléndez as head of the Child Support Administration; and Amy Vega Ojeda, an attorney, as the administrator of the Administration for the Care and Comprehensive Development of Children.
Rivera, the governor’s pick to head the Agriculture Department, is a public servant and federal policy expert. He served as director of the Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration starting at the end of January 2021. Previously, he served as the state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Puerto Rico, from April 2018 to January 2021.
During his tenure at the USDA, he organized the first Puerto Rico Rural Loan Investment Summit, arranged to have Puerto Rico selected as a state pilot program for the Single-Family Home Repair program, and convened leading roundtables in the telecommunications and public health industries, in collaboration with federal and state partners. In his first year in office, he received federal recognition for his efforts in recovery. Using his negotiating skills, the agency completed the largest restructuring of a public utility in the Rural Development portfolio, with a transaction of more than $400 million involving the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority.
Rivera also served as an adviser to the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration on issues such as finance, small businesses, agriculture, telecommunications, interstate commerce, air cargo deregulation, employee retention credit, HUBZones, and federal tax reform. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he worked directly with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to expedite recovery efforts.
Soria, who was appointed to lead COR3, has worked continuously since 2017 with FEMA federal funds in multiple agencies and public corporations. He has also been a financial expert in cases related to construction contractor claims for the past 20 years, so he is familiar with the highly specialized industry.
A licensed attorney since 2008 and a certified public accountant since 1996, Soria has more than 28 years of experience working in both national and international accounting firms and founded his own firm 10 years ago. He worked in the Office of Management and Budget and has been a consultant for government, federal funds, forensic accounting and business valuation, among other areas.
He has expert certifications in fraud investigation, internal controls and business valuation, and has worked with an array of federal funds throughout his professional career.
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