American Moves to Pittsburgh from Peru, Finds Value in Supporting Immigrant Entrepreneurs
Although born in Fargo, North Dakota, Brent Rondon has experienced first-hand the obstacles of coming to the United States, learning a new language, and finding your place in a new community. Rondon and his twin brother spent most of their early lives in their parents’ native Peru where the family moved when Rondon was 5 years old. After graduating with a degree in agriculture engineering from a university in Lima, a family friend in Harrisburg, invited the brothers to study English in America.
“My father died in a tragic car accident when we were young,” Rondon recalls. “And our family struggled financially. My dad had wanted us to return to America at some point, so my mom saved up enough money for us to go and fulfill his dream.”
After arriving in Pennsylvania, Rondon enrolled in an English class at the Hispanic American Cultural Center, and his teacher helped him find work cleaning warehouse floors. “Our money was drying up, and my English wasn’t good, so I was willing to take any job,” he says. The hours were long, and he’d come home exhausted every night. About a year later, a coworker expressed shock that Rondon had an engineering degree and was cleaning floors. She encouraged him to apply for a data entry job at the state’s department of transportation. In 1989 at the age of 26, he was hired.
After five years, Rondon returned to school to obtain a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on international trade and economic development at the University of Pittsburgh. He was impressed by the city’s diversity and felt overjoyed after attending the university’s Latin American Festival. “It was a dream,” Rondon says. “I met other people from Peru. For the first time, I found the space I was looking for.”
After graduating, he worked in international business development before becoming a senior consultant for the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence’s Small Business Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. In this role, he helps make entrepreneurship more accessible to immigrants. He provides one-on-one consulting, helps clients find lawyers and consultants who speak their language, and gives webinars on how to open a business. “Immigrant entrepreneurs are optimists for life,” he says. “They will not stop at any obstacles. It doesn't matter if interest rates or inflation are high, they just move forward.”
In 2014, Rondon joined a newly-created board to form Welcoming Pittsburgh, a city initiative to help immigrants integrate into American life and that contributed to the creation of a permanent Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in 2021. He has watched the city make huge strides in immigrant inclusion but would like to see more city government signs in other languages and a larger budget for Welcoming Pittsburgh to hire staff and expand services. “That support is so important,” he says. “I wish I had someone when I first came to guide me.”