Jennifer Rios Is Founder & President of the Prince George’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

By Gil Griffin // PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB ROBERTS

Jennifer Rios is hardly understated, but she’s mastered the art of understatement.

As founder and president of the recently established Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Prince George’s County, allow her to deliver an over-the-top understatement.

Brace yourselves.

“I stay busy.”

Seemingly, since birth.

While leading the Chamber, Rios — a 13-year United States Armed Forces service-disabled veteran whose active duty includes combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan — also runs a small handful of hustles out of her home, including a software consulting firm, a landscaping business, and a custodial service. Rios also has been appointed to the Prince George’s County Latino Advisory Board for a two-year term beginning in January 2024. She’s finishing her last semester of a doctorate program to earn a PhD. in business administration with a specialization in leadership, and a single mother raising a child.

And oh yeah, one more thing. One day, Rios says, she’s going to run for president of the United States.

Rios’s handling of multiple professional and personal responsibilities isn’t borne of a mad mission to multitask. Talk to her or those who intimately know her, and they’ll all use a common word to describe Rios’s bountiful wellspring of energy.

“Determination,” says longtime friend Nick Hocker, a telecommunications sales rep who first met Rios when she was an adolescent, in San Antonio, Texas, their mutual hometown.

“She’s had that from a young age. She excelled in school and in sports. Then she did something in her life I’ve always wanted to do with mine — start her own business, with her software consulting firm. I saw the struggles she was going through, from finding the right people to work for her, to not always having partners who were trustworthy. She didn’t get her first contract for quite some time. But she stuck with it, then she got that contract. Then she was able to carve her own path. And when she has success, she wants to elevate others.

That’s one of the motivations that drove Rios to found the Chamber.

“I see the Latino community in Prince George’s County rising,” Rios says.

“There’s a larger population and in the next 10 years, we’re going to see even more numbers come where we’re catching up to the different other ethnicities. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere. The Chamber’s goal is to educate them so we can establish more Latino businesses.”

In self-identifying as Latina, Rios describes her ethnic heritage heritage as Mexican, “with Native American blood.” In addition to other Mexican Americans, Rios says there’s a growing Latino representation in Prince George’s County, of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Hondurans.

“When I first came to Prince George’s County three years ago,” Rios begins, “I noticed there was a lot of talk about diversity and inclusion, but there really wasn’t. When you talk about diversifying and including various cultures, you have to reflect that and that’s not what’s reflected here. It was time to have somewhere that Latinos could go. We needed our own Chamber of Commerce and have a place where they could come and get information.”

The Chamber’s immediate goal, Rios says, is to get at least 25 different Latino-owned businesses by the end of the calendar year to become members and increase that number to 100 by the end of 2024 and then another 100 by the end of 2025.

Long-term? Have and maintain fully funded scholarships for Latina high school and college students, through fundraising. Rios says she’s organized a partnership with Elizabeth Seton High School, an all-girls, private institution in Bladensburg where the student population is mostly Brown and Black.

“The partnership would help high school and college students who want to become entrepreneurs and start businesses or help them financially as they set foot in college or on another part of their academic journey,” Rios says.

“We have a lot of wonderful businesses here in Prince George’s County. We also have a lot of students who are interested in internships. If we have the right coaches and mentors in place, we can build more businesses here.”

Rios also is in negotiations with the local TV media outlet DC News Now, to host a recurring, 30-minute program on behalf of the Chamber, which would be seen throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and feature different Latino-owned businesses owners discussing their enterprises, how those impact the Latino community, and provide tips and insights on how to start new businesses.

Rios’s journey is one of perseverance and skillful navigation through and around socioeconomic pitfalls. She grew up in San Antonio’s lower income, southeast side, in a two-bedroom home she shared with her parents and five siblings.

“It was a broken home,” Rios reflects. “But I used all the adversities to change them into positives.”

Rios said enlisting in the military as a 17-year-old was a life-changer.

“It taught me to put others before myself,” she says.

“I have the capacity to say, ‘You know what? I’m going to retire and live off my disability check, but it’s not about me. It’s about the different people I can impact, then inspire and motivate. It’s about paying it forward and educating those who need help. I feel like it is my calling to give unconditionally to the people who would like help that I can give.”

Rios comes from warrior stock. She is a descendant of a man named Juan Vargas, a legendary Aztec Indian figure in Texas history, whose life spanned a remarkable 115 years, from 1795 to 1910. Vargas fought in the Mexican War of Independence and survived capture at the Battle of the Alamo.

It’s a safe bet, though, that Vargas wasn’t juggling as many obligations then as Rios was when she first joined the service.

“The Army teaches people how to do many different things at once,” says Alicia Newton, Rios’s NCO (noncommissioned officer) at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg — now Fort Liberty.

“Even way back then, she was going to school full time while she was a staff sergeant in the Army and she had plans for starting her own businesses. When she sets her mind to something, it’s gonna get done. She set her goals high and she doesn’t stop when she achieves one goal. She’s gonna keep going and make others around her better.”

That’s plenty to keep Rios staying busy. She simply knows no other way.