How Raymond Sanchez Jr. Honors His Father’s Legacy 25 Years After September 11
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What people say about you when you’re not in the room matters. Raymond Sanchez Jr. has seen that play out throughout a career shaped by relationships, mentorship, and people willing to put his name forward because they trusted how he would show up. It is also a lesson he learned early from his father, Raymond Sanchez Sr., who taught him to have a plan, think ahead, and understand that what you know matters, but so does who you know.
Ray was only 22 when his father, a union carpenter working at the World Trade Center, was killed on September 11th. In the aftermath, Ray found himself navigating the legal process to establish his father’s death, an experience that ultimately helped lead him to law school. Twenty-five years later, his father’s example still shows up in the way Ray thinks about service, integrity, and whether he is leaving things better than he found them. He is equally intentional about making sure his father is remembered for who he was, not simply for what happened to him on September 11th.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula T. Edgar sits down with Ray to discuss the people and experiences that shaped his career, why doing the right thing when nobody is looking remains central to his personal brand, and how his father continues to influence the choices he makes today. They also reflect on their shared experience of losing a parent on September 11th and why telling their parents’ stories matters if their legacies will be more than names on a wall.
Chapters
1:13 – What personal brand means to Ray, three words he’d use to describe himself, his two favorite quotes, and his hype music
6:38 – How a childhood in the NYCHA buildings of the Lower East Side forged Ray’s code of ethics
12:47 – The internship that quietly connected Ray to politicians, Broadway royalty, and two decades of career opportunities
19:43 – The exhausting, bureaucratic maze of proving his father's life ever existed, just to get what Ray was legally owed
22:24 – Going to law school and working at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
28:13 – The one thing to consider before accepting any job offer, and the roles Ray took on doing meaningful work in the Hispanic community
37:53 – A perfect demonstration of how personal branding is about what people say about (whether you’re in or out of the room)
41:00 – Why Ray ran for NYC Council District 7, joined a non-profit six weeks before federal investigators raided it, and became its new executive director
51:49 – Why Ray almost lost his cool with a city bureaucrat over the phone
57:19 – Raymond Sanchez Sr. as a man and a father, and what his son Ray remembers most about him
1:03:39 – The morning of September 11th through Ray’s eyes, and his father's quiet act of heroism that day
1:11:32 – The dehumanization of the 9/11 victim’s compensation fund, and how that experience proved to be a turning point that led Ray to law school
1:18:26 – How losing his dad the way he did turned Ray into who he is now
1:21:31 – Standing up for our communities as legacy, and why the phrase “victims’ families” never told the whole story
1:24:19 – Pushing back against being only defined by 9/11, why it took 15 years for Ray to talk about that day and tell his father’s story
1:28:15 – The joyful, fun parts of Ray today that his dad would recognize and be proud of
1:30:54 – What ethics demands of you when nobody’s watching, and Ray’s special talent to quickly synthesize complexity
Connect With Raymond Sanchez Jr.
Raymond Sanchez Jr., Esq. has spent two decades building a career at the intersection of law, government, and public advocacy — moving fluidly between City Hall, the private sector, and the nonprofit boardroom in ways that have repeatedly put him in the room where a crisis needed a steady hand. He most recently served as General Counsel to the NYC Mayor's Office of Contract Services, advising the City's Chief Procurement Officer on citywide policy and compliance. Before that, he was appointed CEO of Aguila, Inc., a NYC homeless services nonprofit, where he led the organization through a New York State Attorney General investigation and a pandemic-era transformation of a 200-bed shelter into the city's largest COVID quarantine center. His earlier chapters include Managing Director at Mercury Public Affairs, Principal of his own government relations firm, and seven years as General Counsel and Director of Policy to the Bronx Borough President, where he helped pass NYC's Living Wage Law and secured the conveyance of the Fulton Correctional Facility for a first-of-its-kind reentry housing program.
A first-generation Latino leader, Raymond holds a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law and a B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University, and serves on the board of Areté Education and as a special advisor to the La Unidad Latina Foundation. He is a two-time honoree on NYC "40 Under 40" lists and a recipient of the Council of Urban Professionals' Law Catalyst Award.
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This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.
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Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to Branding Room Only, the podcast where your personal brand gets a front row seat. I'm Paula Edgar and if you're here, it's because you know your brand isn't just about what you do. It's about how people experience you. In each episode, you'll hear stories, strategies and lessons from leaders and influencers who built their brands and made their mark. And I'll share the tools you need to do the same.
Let's go. Hi, everybody, it's Paula Edgar and I'm back here with another episode of Branding Room Only. Really excited about the conversation I'm having today with a good friend and I've been waiting a long time to have this conversation. Let me tell you about my guest. Raymond Sanchez, Jr. is a New York attorney and civic leader whose career spans government, advocacy and executive management. He has advised city and state officials and served in leadership roles focused on accountability, equity and community development. We are connected not only by friendship, but by the shared loss of a parent on September 11th, an experience that continues to shape how we view service, legacy and leadership. Ray, welcome to the Branding Room. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today. We've been talking about this for a while. So we're going to start the conversation like I always start with my guests, which is, what does personal brand mean to you? How would you define it?
Ray Sanchez: Great question. Personal brand to me is something that when someone else brings up your name and you're not in the room, what are the first things that come up? And it's really important, right? Because sometimes there's always a distortion between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. And constantly having that conversation with yourself about, what am I doing that is consistent with how I want to be perceived, because it does matter. Right. I mean, ultimately, you got to be you got to be true to yourself and be authentic. But, you know, again, your people are going to perceive you and judge you by what you actually do and how you conduct yourself. And it matters. It matters, you know, what people say when you're not in the room.
Paula Edgar: That's a great snapshot. And I love the fact that you wove authenticity into it, because so often people think of branding as the superficial, but it's not, like when you do it well, when you have a good brand, it is very, it resonates because it doesn't seem like, you know, external to who you actually are. So I love that. So speaking of that, who are you? How would you describe yourself, in three words or short phrases?
Ray Sanchez: Three words, I would say driven. Authentic is very important to me. I always come back to that. What you see is what you get. I love Chris Rock comedy. Chris Rock is like, am I dating you or your representative? There's no representative here, whether it's professional, personal, romantic, what have you. What you see is what you get and I'm unapologetic about it. And then the third one, I would say convener. Right, someone that likes, you know, I was thinking about like a word that encapsulates as a community building and connecting folks and bringing people together. That was something I enjoyed doing very much. You know, like these last nine months, I held three different happy hours to raise money for Latino justice, which is a nonprofit I'm very passionate about and supporting for a long time. Just, you know, getting my friends together, like, hey, let's hang out, but we're going to hang out. Let's do something positive while we're doing it. And, you know, at this point generated almost $10,000 out of across three fundraisers, just getting good people to hang out.
Paula Edgar: That's fantastic.
Ray Sanchez: And build community.
Paula Edgar: You do. And you're involved with so many different cohorts, too. So but let me get them to know about you more first. Tell me, do you have a favorite quote or motto that you are thinking about right now?
Ray Sanchez: I mean, when I think about favorite quotes that I always come back to, there's two. One is the motto at the crest of Rumsey Hall, which is where I went to boarding school at 11.
Paula Edgar: Wait, you went to boarding school too?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, we talked about this.
Paula Edgar: I don't think I remember.
Ray Sanchez: It's okay.
Paula Edgar: Look, we can get into it in a minute.
Ray Sanchez: We're going to get into it because it's hard not to.
Paula Edgar: Oh my goodness.
Ray Sanchez: Because as you know, as someone who's been through it, it's such a... It's such a transformative part of… gone through that. So it was, it's Quinn non-prophesied deficit (that’s what he says, this is what he means: cum deficit prophetia dissipabitur populus). He who does not move forward falls behind. Right. That's definitely something that's always been really grounding me like. And even as someone who was very passionate about yoga and reflection and the stillness that comes with that, but even in that stillness, you're doing something. So, you know, they're not antagonistic in my opinion, right? You know, even in your stillness, that's an action, right? They say a non-response is a response, right?
Paula Edgar: Are you talking to my husband?
Ray Sanchez: I love your husband, he's the best.
Paula Edgar: He said, say hello.
Ray Sanchez: Love you, bro. Bottle of scotch this summer. Say whatever you want. Got you. Yeah, I mean and so, and then the other one is, it's a long one. It's the infamous Teddy Roosevelt quote.
Paula Edgar: Okay, which one?
Ray Sachez: It is not the critic who counts. It's a long one. I had it handy. It's a long one. It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out where how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat and blood, who strives valiantly. And basically the point of the quote, it's better to be the person trying to do things. And if you fail, who cares? Better to be the person trying to get stuff done and do things than just be on the sideline critiquing, because everyone's got a critic, right? I think I've definitely in my career have demonstrated that in different ways.
Paula Edgar: That resonates, especially now when there's so many folks who are not doing. Anywho, tell me, when they're going to get full Raymond Sanchez Jr., what song is playing? What's your hype song?
Ray Sanchez: Oh man, there's a few. As you got older, like in college, I loved M-A-T-O-G, man. After college, I was doing a lot of, you know, 50s first album, many men, you know, get my hype on, you know, when I work out, I'm blasting Pitbull and Bad Bunny to get my hype on.
Paula Edgar: That was good to say, come on, shout out Puerto Rico.
Ray Sanchez: Definitely get my energy up. Yeah, those are the kind of things I kind of like, I used to kind of get myself going, get myself amped, you know, I wrestled for seven plus years. So there's always that kind of like wrestler mentality in the back of my mind, like, again, let's get it on. Let's go, me and you.
Paula Edgar: I love it. You know. Okay, so I ask everybody, because I feel like it gives us a better connection. Where did you grow up and how do you think that shaped you?
Ray Sanchez: So I'm a Lower East Side kid, grew up in the NYCHA buildings on the FDR Drive, Baruch Houses. That was home. But I always put a big asterisk, because of boarding school. It was, again, a very different time. It was the 80s. I was born in 78, I'm 47 years old. Lower East Side in the 80s was very different. They still called it Lower East Side. Right, you know, it wasn't just in Eureka, which is one of the few things that are left in the community. I'm talking about gentrification, you know. But, you know, I was with my mom on 64 Baruch, sorry, right on the water, right by the bridge. And my dad was one stop into Brooklyn on the J-Train at Marciap. So, you know, for the most part, I mean, my mom raised me and home was Lower East Side, but I was always taking the bridge and taking the train one stop to Brooklyn to go see my dad and whatnot. So, you know, I claim Manhattan. I claim Brooklyn. I obviously claim the Bronx, because of my times in the BX with the borough president and Aguilar and the Ferrer campaign. And, you know, I love the Bronx very much and it's been very good to me.
Paula Edgar: And what do those places mean for you? Like, how did they shape you? So I get like when I tell people I'm from Brooklyn, I mean, I'm from East New York, Brooklyn. I'm not from Park Slope. Brooklyn, East New York. And that means, you know, your precinct. That means that, you know, the people who lived in my neighborhood were all Caribbean and they were, you know, immigrants and they were taking care of us as a community. What do you think shaped you for the different communities you have been part of?
Ray Sanchez: You know, especially in the Lower East Side, it was very much a vertical community, you know, like, because it was not, again, it was the 80s, you know, I'm talking about the AIDS epidemic, the crack epidemic, we had gangs in the Lower East Side, you know, it was not, it was not okay. I remember my mom getting robbed in the elevator, you know, or just how many times you walked into the elevator and we were on the 11th floor to urine in the elevator, right? Or even like little crack vials in the staircase. Like my mom set me up, you know, again, it was all community, right? Like you had all these, a lot of single moms trying to figure out how to raise their kids together, supporting one another. And you know, how many times my mom would be like, go to 12, because we were on a limb, go to 12 and grab a couple eggs from Maria or get some butter and vice versa. Like they're sending in us now and give them some, you know, give them a cup of rice, whatever it is that we were, whoever needed something, we always looked out for each other. I remember, I went up to Maria's to get something. And I saw these little, like, these little straight liners with different colored tops on them. I didn't know what they were. I was a kid. They were crack vials. I didn't know what they were. And my mom was like, don't touch those again. Because there wasn't even a play back then, you know what I mean?
Paula Edgar: Gosh, flashbacks.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, it was just a very different time. No cell phones or, you know, it was a very vertical community. Everybody's parents were looking out for each other's kids and, you know, talking and what not. If someone's mom saw you, they told your mother.
Paula Edgar: They sure did.
Ray Sachez: So that whisper, but I really believed in that. And I was very fortunate so that when I got a scholarship from the Boys Club in New York, I always shout out the Boys Club in New York, they sent me off to boarding school at 11 to go to this tiny little boarding school. I tell people, think Gilmore Girls, the town where Lorelei the diner was.
Paula Edgar: Okay, got it.
Ray Sanchez: Like rural farm Connecticut is where Rumsey was. And just to go from two very different communities.
Paula Edgar: At Levin too?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, Levin was a big deal, you know, and again, you know, like, you know, talk about like where your, where your ethic comes from, right? You know, the Boys Club didn't play around, you know, at the time it was run, Charlie Sequoia was running the program and he was, you know, getting old in age and retiring. Charlie did not play. He's like, we need you to perform well, because you're the first Boys Club kid Rumsey Hall has ever had. And if you don't come correct, you're jeopardizing the ability of other boys to get that opportunity. And I remember with the Boys Club especially, it was always about, we make all these things available to you. The clubhouses, the little leagues, the programs after school. All we ask is that you push the ladder back down for the boys behind you. I've always taken that very personally, very strongly. So yeah, so I made it a point, I won dorm citizen of the year. In my dorm that year, I wasn't playing. I was like.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Dorm citizen of the year.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, I was like, I wanted to leave my name there. At Middlesex, I was captain of the wrestling team. My name is still on the wall with all the other captains of the wrestling team. At Wesleyan, I wanted to do something academically before I left. I wrote an honors thesis. You know, just as like, I wanted, again, like you just, you want to leave stuff better than you found it. That's also another one of the things I really just, in terms of like my ethics and things that govern how I approach things.
Paula Edgar: That makes a lot of sense. And I think I see that in the values that I know that you have and just how you show up. My boarding school's motto is Deerfield Academy. Shout out to my people. Be worthy of your heritage. And I remember when I went there, I went at 13, about to be 14. And it was different for me, because they were, you know, all these rich white folks for the most part. And then me coming from East New York, similar thing where, you know, I didn't even know boarding school existed until they came to my school. And they only came to my school in East New York, because the school they were going to go to had a fire. So exactly, right. And so they came and they gave me like a video cassette tape and were like, take this home and show your parents. I came home, I was like, I'm going to go to this school. And my mother was like, oh, OK. So that experience. of being in school, in a place that you know there's a lot of weight, but there's also, I think, a lot of drive in you to be able to do that accomplishment in all those different spaces. How do you take that? You go from all those schools to then the career that you've been in. Tell us about your career path.
Ray Sanchez: You know, I got really lucky that while I was at Wesleyan, I connected with Lin-Manuel and Luis Miranda. And long story short, Lin and I got to intern for his dad the summer between my junior and senior year. And, you know, and that summer we were basically doing stuff. Luis had left the Hispanic Federation and started his consulting practice with Roberto Ramirez. And that'll come back later in my career, because you talk about, you know, yeah, there's something I always get in terms of trying to always pay it forward. But I think about the profound impact that one internship had on my career. Because I interned for Luis and, you know, splitting time, his offices, Bronx County Democrats and I graduate and, you know, I was supposed to work at a dot-com, but this is, you know, summer 2000, all the dot-coms are going in the toilet.
Paula Edgar: Timing.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, timing. So my job offer disappeared just because so did the non-profit. I mean, the tech, the Quill company. And I got a phone call from the Fernando Ferrer Mayoral campaign saying, hey, everybody really liked you last, over the summer. We have a spot on the campaign where you'd be a fundraiser. And this was super exciting, because that summer internship I had, fed into my senior thesis, right? Yeah, because I wrote my senior thesis at Wesleyan. I bought Latino Political Incorporation in New York City. And I got to basically interview Roberto Ramirez, who was the Bronx County Chair and Assembly Member for the thesis, right? I got to read about Fernando Ferrer and then go work for him. And like literally accompany him to fundraisers and meetings all over the city at 21. I remember when I was going through the interview process, the head of the finance team said to me, to my face and we're actually really good friends, so I really appreciate it. But he told me point blank to my face in the interview process, I have real reservations giving somebody your age, fresh out of college, this kind of responsibility. And again, you know me, right? So my response is not going to surprise you. But what I said to him was, X, Y and Z, think I can do this job and that's why I'm here. And if you have an issue with that or my age, take it up with them. Because, you know, like, straight up.
Paula Edgar: I love that Lower East side came through. Came out real quick.
Ray Sanchez: You know, because again, like, you know, again and that's, you know, things, you know, you have to, you know, mature through, navigate, right? You know, like those Dave Chappelle skits, we're keeping it real good and raw, right? You know, yeah, because again, like growing up in the 80s, you could get into it with somebody, because you looked at them wrong, or because they thought they said something about your mother. Like, really, it was that easy for something to pop up in the 80s. You know, and so having to like really like go through that evolution, you know, in terms of like, and that's why wrestling became such an important outlet for me at boarding school and into Wesleyan, because it was like, all right…
Paula Edgar: Get that aggression out.
Ray Sanchez: How do we get that aggression out? How do we get that chip off your shoulder? How do you get that little bit of looking over your shoulder vibe out? Because that's not every space. Especially as a 200 plus pound Puerto Rican man, I understand that I might be and this is something I still struggle with. I know in my mind, on a scale of one to 10, one being Gandhi and 10 being the Tasmanian devil, in my mind, I might be a five, but I'm coming across as a six or a seven just because of my mannerisms, just because of how animated I can get. And that isn't always the quite appropriate way to conduct yourself given the environment and the context, right?
Paula Edgar: So keep pushing forward. What was your next step in terms of your career?
Ray Sanchez: So, yeah, so, you know, I got the, I did very well on the for mayoral campaign. I knocked it out the park. And at that point, because of the way the campaign finance program was structured, we had matched, we had raised the maximum money you could spend in the Democratic primary. Nine months into me being there. Because we had, the nine months I was there, that six month filing was the most money the campaign had raised. And they gave me a core chunk of Freddie's contact book. So I just worked the system. I got there in June. By November, I had more fundraisers on the calendar than anybody else on the team.
Paula Edgar: That’s fantastic and it's a skill. As someone who's also been a fundraiser, it is a skill, because you have to know people well. You have to be persistent. You know, there's a lot of skills that come from that being a first role. I think it probably also helps shape how you navigate the rest of your career.
Ray Sanchez: Absolutely.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Yeah.
Ray Sanchez: It taught me how to make the ask and not to be afraid to make the ask. Because fundraising isn't rocket science, but not every party can... Most people can't do it.
Paula Edgar: People are scared to ask.
Ray Sanchez: People don't want to make the ask. People don't, I mean, it's just. Yeah. But I've been able to use that, you know, to just do positive things, you know what I mean? Because most of the time, if I'm asking you for something, it's not for me. It's because I'm trying to do something positive or I'm trying to help somebody. And when you operate that way, just having good karma and putting good out in the world and let the rest take care of itself. So being able to, again, have that background of not being afraid to make the ask, yeah, it's super helpful. Because it teaches you how to advocate for yourself as well. So, you know, from the Ferrer Mayoral campaign, I went to the Hispanic Federation and that's where I was working through 9-11. Because again, I graduated college in May 2000 and September 2001 was not that long. You know, so I was barely a year out of college. You know, I graduated college at 21. And, you know, we were literally doing nonpartisan Latino voter civic engagement on election day. Most people forget 9-11 was election day.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, yeah.
Ray Sanchez: I'm not alone when I tell you that, but for 9-11, Freddie Ferrer would have been mayor. And I would have been working at City Hall.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, yeah.
Ray Sanchez: Straight up. Let's push through for the, like to come through your career trajectory past that and then come back to 9-11. So that clearly, that had a pivot point, pointed by no matter what. So what, you know, what was the next role that you had?
Ray Sanchez: Right. So, so, you know, it takes some time off and we'll get to this stuff later, but in a sense of like, you know, I'm 21, 22 years old and now I've got to navigate a very complex system to get a death certificate for my father. Because unlike a lot of folks at like Aon or other places, There were other things I had to deal with, in order to get my dad's death certificate. And it took a legit year of me basically going to Puerto Rico to get his birth certificate, pulling public records, getting his marriage license, pulling his union, a record, beneficiary cards, my birth certificate, creating the record. So I can go to surrogate court and say, give me my death certificate and in the state. So I can then go to the victim compensation fund, get the money that my sister and I were entitled to and then get my life back. Because I was putting my life on hold.
Paula Edgar: So how long was that process for you? So like over a year?
Ray Sanchez: It was over a year. And I used that time to, you know, to handle that for my family. You know, because it helps me like, in my mind, it was my turd. My mom, my sister raised me. My mom was remarried. She couldn't do anything legally. My sister was not in a place to handle it. So I had to get it done.
Paula Edgar: So when I decided to draft the questions about what I want to talk to you about and our shared experience, it was triggering to me because I am obviously…
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, yeah.
Paula Edgar: I want to come back to the victim, specifically the victim's compensation. You know, we have this one because I want to talk about that process. So let's blip, right?
Ray Sanchez: So get through that and basically, while I'm doing that, I applied to law school. And I started law school in fall of 2003.
Paula Edgar: What? We went to law school at the same time too? We were living parallel lives.
Ray Sanchez: We really were, man.
Paula Edgar: Oh my goodness.
Ray Sanchez: And crazy, a trip to Israel is what brought us together.
Paula Edgar: I know!
Ray Sanchez: Best road trip ever.
Paula Edgar: It was. Oh wait, so you were there during the blackout too?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. Yeah.
Paula Edgar: So our first semester of law school, that's when New York had its big blackout. And you want to talk about being triggered. It was 2003. 9-11 had happened. And then you see the infrastructure of the world in our world of New York flipped the fuck out, parden my French.
Ray Sanchez : People were shook.
Paula Edgar: Well, we'll get into it, but my goodness. Okay, so go ahead. So you go to law school.
Ray Sanchez: I go to law school, thanks to the Boys Club.
Paula Edgar: Where'd you go to law school again?
Ray Sanchez: Rutgers Law. Yes, come on, where are you? Yeah, Brick City, Newark. Yeah, no, no, law school. You know, I decided to go to law school, because I figured that was the most responsible thing I could do. I took you know, I got the victim compensation money, gave my sister her half. I literally bought a house in North Newark and enrolled in law school. And I was…
Paula Edgar: North Newark. I'm just kidding.
Ray Sanchez: Patrick Park, nothing but love. Newark and Jersey were good to me. The Bronx, I've been very fortunate. The Bronx has been great to me. Newark has been great to me.
Paula Edgar: You're like a hood nomad.
Ray Sanchez: Basically, a lot of people get it twisted with the private education and because I speak well, that, because I went to boarding school and Wesleyan and law school and yada yada. Don't forget, don't forget the stuff we saw growing up in those times. It was not, so, you know, again, having, again, and again, so being able to move between and talk to different people and being able to, you know, more than code switch, really just understand, okay, how do I connect with the person in front of me? And it's not just your word choice. It's your tone. It's how you carry yourself.
Paula Edgar: It's your brand.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. So yeah. So I went to law school. I had a really, I was very fortunate through a boys club connection to meet with the first general counsel in history of Brown Brothers Harriman. Brown Brothers Harriman is a very unique place. You know, I remember when I was, when I was a summer in there as a law school student and then I would end up working there after law school. We had outside counsel do a presentation, because we were creating basically the legal division from scratch. They had a compliance division and I'll never forget Jim Kaplan, the first general counsel, he had me in his office. It was like one of those goldfish offices. He's like, wait, look around. I'm like, yes, sir. He's like, I need to improve the intellectual capital of this entire division, which I thought was the sexiest, smartest way of saying, I'm about to replace and fire all these people. So he's like, you want to be the first law school student this summer here? I'm like, sign me up, let's go. Jim was super cool and he was like...
Paula Edgar: That is a good way to say, y'all gotta go. Y'all gotta go.
Ray Sanchez: Jim just got it, you know and he was such a great guy in the sense of like... He's like, Ray, I went to Harvard. I went to University of Chicago Law School. I did the whole traditional stuff, made partner, made a brad. If you could skip all that nonsense and get quality in-house... I'm like, Jim, you ain't got to sell this to me. Let's just do this. Right? And so that led to, you know, which…
Paula Edgar: And usually people don't do in-house before going to a law, being at a law firm or something like that. So context, but huh?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, I've been very fortunate to never have to work at a law firm. But I got great legal training in there. I picked up my Series 7, my Series 24 FINRA licenses on top of my JD. But also it was such an important lesson in institutional asset management, institutional finance and all that, which was super useful, when I became a pension trustee on behalf of the Borough president from 2013 to 2018, signing off on massive allocations on behalf of the city pension system. Teachers, cops, firefighters, you know, it was like, this is their money. And I took it very seriously. My dad was a union carpenter and it was the unions that got me through 9-11. Building Trade said, you ain't got to work. Here's a check and there's more coming. Be cool. We got you. And for that, I'll ever-
Paula Edgar: Shout out to unions.
Ray Sanchez: Shout out to unions.
Paula Edgar: Thank you, CWA, Local 101. Okay.
Ray Sanchez: A thousand percent.
Paula Edgar: I'm a union wife, baby.
Ray Sanchez: So yeah, I was at Brown Brothers for a while, I got… you know, parted ways during the financial crisis. That's the way I'll put that part away during the financial crisis. And, you know, you can talk about, again, like brand and whatnot, pivot, right? So I managed to sell a house for a profit and get a job during the financial crisis.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say during the financial crisis.
Ray Sanchez: During the 2008 global financial crisis.
Paula Edgar: Not in my talk about skill sets.
Ray Sanchez: You know? Again, our generation understands it's hustle, you know?
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes.
Ray Sanchez: And how do we pass that down? I'll never forget this. I went to a poetry slam, up in the Bronx at Salsa Caterers, because a buddy of mine was up from Richmond to perform. He's a Brooklyn kid, actually. He's a Bushwick kid. But he was living in Richmond, but he came up for this, and I just wanted to catch up with him. And he was working at New York Life at the time and he was doing insurance and financial advising work. And he's like, you know, part of the reason he also came up is because I have this interview for this corporate job at New York Life in the Hispanic market, but I'm not really that interested in it. And he's like, you know what? I think you would do it. I'm like, what? He's like, I'm like, I've never done insurance. I don't know. I don't do any training, recruiting. Again, I have all this corporate banking, legal experience. He's like, oh, Ray, you could do it. That's a theme in my life. Oh, Ray, you could do it. And I ended up doing it, which is wild. So he goes in the interview. He checks out. He's like, I'm for him. He pitches me. I go in, I get the job, man. I'm working at New York Life for a couple of years, which was great. Because then from that side, I picked up my insurance broker's license, but again, also picked up understanding retail services.
Paula Edgar: You just collected licenses.
Ray Sanchez: But again, like, you know, it's so important, you know and I say this to people I mentor all the time, you know, evaluate the opportunity by what skills you're going to cultivate.
Paula Edgar: That's the bar.
Ray Sanchez: Evaluate the opportunity by what skills you're going to cultivate. You know, it's… you know and that goes for not, you know for people all ages in their career, you know, I was really just talking somebody yesterday about, you know, assessing a job opportunity and it's like, yeah, it's easy to get excited about the potential paycheck, but like, there's lots of other factors that need to be, you know, a lot of other, as I would say, how many, what are the variables in the equation?
Paula Edgar: A hundred percent. It's not just the money.
Ray Sanchez: What are the variables? How are they weighted? Yeah, yeah. That's a metaphor I always come back to.
Paula Edgar: Where's the growth opportunity? There's a whole lot that goes into it.
Ray Sanchez: And what is the downside? What are you giving up? What is the opportunity cost? These are all the things you got to flesh out. When you're just trying to navigate change…
Paula Edgar: And life.
Ray Sanchez: And life. So, you know, New York life, I was there for about two years and I was having breakfast on my birthday with one of my favorite people of all time. He knows who he is, Paul Del Duca, who was chief of staff to then Borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr. And I go back to that internship I had with Luis and then working for the Bronx Democrats that summer and then right after Wesleyan. You know, Paul and I had breakfast, we're catching up. Paul and Ruben adopted me as a mentee in 99, right? They liked me and they took an interest in me and I'll be forever grateful to Ruben and Paul and Luis and Roberto and all of them. Luis, Roberto Ramirez, all of them. We'll come back to that later. And, you know, so, you know, Paul and I have breakfast. We chat up. He asked me all these questions. I'm like, yeah, but, you know, worry about black. Again, I'm just catching up. I go off to do what… I take my meetings. I was taking that and that morning and then around three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm going to happy hour, because it's Friday and it's my birthday. I've got to live.
Paula Edgar: Makes sense.
Ray Sanchez: Consistent. Part of the brand. Having a good time.
Paula Edgar: A hundred percent.
Ray Sanchez: Paul calls me and goes, quit your job and come work for us. This is where you belong.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Ray Sanchez: Cause Paul got it. Paul understood, what did I care about? I cared about community. I cared about doing stuff that was meaningful. Like why did I get excited about working for Fernando for making the first Latino Puerto Rican mayor in New York? These are the things that I got excited about. You know, even when I was doing work at New York Life, at least there was like, again, we were in the Hispanic community trying to promote Financial literacy. And you know just the importance of something as basic as life insurance and why, you know, and so I felt like we were just always there was always a public good to what I was doing, there was always you know actual work being done. And it's part of the reason why I kind of tuned out of Brown Brothers.
Paula Edgar: It wasn't a connection, didn't have…
Ray Sanchez: After a while, it's just, you know, we're moving X billions of dollars from this bank to this bank and we were the broker on this trade or not the broker on this trade. We were the custodian. I'm answering subpoenas from the SEC, like, no, you don't have jurisdiction, but here's X, Y and Z. Here's the response, blah, blah, blah. You know, I just, you know, I just, I kind of, yeah, I checked out, you know, I just wasn't feeling like... I mean, I learned a lot. But after, but after like about three years or so, I was just... What am I doing? And I'm sure you could appreciate this, right? Because you go to law school thinking you're going to do X, Y and Z. And so many people, if not the vast majority of people, end up doing something completely different.
Paula Edgar: Something totally different.
Ray Sanchez: And you know this better than I do. The ABA data shows the percentage of people who stop practicing within three to five years is insane.
Paula Edgar: It's like 30%.
Ray Sanchez: It's an insane number. So it's like, you go three plus years to get this education. Lord knows how much debt you're going to rack up. Because that's another thing I tell people who ask me about applying to law school, I'm like, how are you going to pay for it? And, you know, that's, again, part of the reason why, when I had the 9-11, I'm like, what's the responsible use for this money? I invested in my education.
Paula Edgar: Which is the best investment to…
Ray Sanchez: I bought a house… But yeah, so Paul's like, put your job, come work for us. And I did. I negotiated my exit so I can get my bonus.
Paula Edgar: Love it.
Ray Sanchez: No, I mean, that's something.
Paula Edgar: Strategy.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, no, look, I remember like, again, like just, you know, building, you know, with the people you're working with and always, I always say people, you should, I don't care how old you are, you should seek mentorship, seek to be mentored.
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes.
Ray Sanchez: But also be mentoring. Right. So I always look for that. I've always, wherever I've been, sought out mentors. And I remember the guys, you know, the guys who were in the Hispanic market who were older and whatnot. They were like, Ray. Your bonus to this company is nothing. So you don't leave until they give you your bonus.
Paula Edgar: Which is important to have somebody to tell you the things that you may not know and, right, to help you.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Wow.
Ray Sanchez: You know.
Paula Edgar: All right. So then what?
Ray Sanchez: So yeah, so I had, you know, eight wonderful years in the Borough president's office. You know, whenever I reflect on that time, I just, I remember how lucky we were to not just have mentors and sponsors and Ruben and Paul, but just really just great colleagues. You know, like really great colleagues who, to many of which we still talk to each other. Like, you know, I remember like, you know, we go to, I was at SOMOS in 2024 and running into somebody, you know, who's, you know, and they were like, yeah, who's currently in the Borough president's office. I won’t say who this person was, he's like, man, You guys were it. It was like entourage. Ruben was Vinnie Chase. No, but it's just like we weren't just we weren't just colleagues and co-workers. We were a crew and like we worked hard and we cared and we like, you know, so much, so many things that we did. Shout out to Jon Naceo. You know, a little league championship at Yankee Stadium. That was Jon and us. Ron's Reactionary Honor Week. Jon Naceo and us, right? 10 million dollar regional economic development win for the South Bronx. That was us, you know.
Paula Edgar: Impact.
Ray Sanchez: Rezoning the Bronx waterfront, promoting development, extending out the supply curve of housing, which we don't talk enough about in this city. You know and it drives me nuts. So like, yeah, we were just, we were really passionate about you know, advocating for the Bronx and doing things like passing the first living wage law in New York. That was us. And these are the things I ran on for city council. You know, like, you know, like, you know, during, so I go, you know, I have eight one-off years in the Borough president's office. I was, you know, Ruben put me, Ruben was always just, give the ball to Ray. You know, he put me on the franchise concession review court, where I got to basically force the city to renegotiate and restructure the franchise agreement that became Lincoln-YC, the Wi-Fi kiosks. So that it was more equitable and they were working the outer boroughs earlier in the franchise, which now they're glad they did, because now they realize stuff that they had to correct. And they found out sooner rather than later, right? It's making it a far more equitable franchise agreement. Serving on the pension board where, you know, again, this is, you know, I remember I'm sitting at the pension, we're sitting at a trustees meeting and, you know, they're talking about these hedge fund managers and our portfolio and how they were doing, in terms of how they were pursuing Puerto Rican debt opportunities and arbitrage and all that funny stuff. And I'm like...
Paula Edgar: You learn so much for what that money goes.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. And I go, you know, and I start raising my concerns. And the consultant goes, well, the manager's doing what you're paying them to do. And I go, how about I fire the manager and exit the asset class? Because this is not... But this is not what we should be doing. You can still honor your obligations to the pension beneficiaries, right? Without going this route. And Henry Garrido, again, shout out to Henry Garrido, another great mentor, somebody I look up to. Henry was like, let's go. And together we advocated and got three of the five pension funds to exit the asset class. And send that message, you know, so…
Paula Edgar: It's not a little bit of money. That's a lot of money.
Ray Sanchez: And I'm proud of that, you know. So, yeah, so whether it was FCRC, the Regional Economic Council, the Pension Board.
Paula Edgar: Lots of different roles with impact.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, living wage law, rezonings at Jerome Avenue, rejoinings at the waterfront, really pushing development. Really just wonderful seven years in the Borough President's Office. A lot of people don't know what Borough Presidents do, but I'll tell you what, we did a lot. And we had fun doing it.
Paula Edgar: Which is an important part of the entire process.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. But after I was there from 2011 to 2018, I just got to a point where like, all right, now what? I just felt like after 7, 8 years, I needed to grow and I was just ready for a new change. And so from there, I went to Mercury Public Affairs. I'm grateful for the opportunity. Freddie Ferrer was at Mercury, right? So that's a funny thing.
Paula Edgar: The circle of life.
Ray Sanchez: The circle, man.
Paula Edgar: The circle of life, you keep seeing the same people.
Ray Sanchez: It comes back over and over again, right? I'm having the interview at Mercury. And the conference room is literally right in front of the front door. It's, again, another one of those fishbowl glass offices. And I'm being interviewed by the partner and Freddie Ferrer literally walks in, takes off his winter coat, hangs it in the closet and goes off to his office, right? So we finish the interview and I'm getting ready to leave. He's like, hang out for a second. He runs to go get Freddy, brings Freddy to say hello to me. Freddy and I catch up. How's Aramina? How's the kids? How the grandkids, Freddy? He's like, how are you? What's going on? Blah, blah, blah. And there's no doubt in my mind, without Freddy being like, raise a good kid, I don't get that opportunity.
Paula Edgar: And that is personal branding. So I just want to pull the thread through all of the things that you said, that somebody's saying something about you, what they're saying in the room you're in, or out of the room you're in. It is so important to be consistent, in terms of your values and how you show up so that people can feel no qualms about putting their name in line with yours.
Ray Sanchez: Absolutely. Again, there is no doubt, there's no way that partner didn't go to Freddie and be like…
Paula Edgar: He good people? That's you?
Ray Sanchez: You co-sign on him? Because if Freddie had been like this, I would not have gotten the job offer. No doubt that happened. So yeah, I was at Mercury. And then after about a year and a half, I spun out on my own. And I got to work on a piece of legislation I was really happy about. I got some people to fund me to work on. That was informed by my time as being a pension trustee. When you look at the under-allocation of institutional pension dollars to minority and women-owned asset managers, you know, there's a, I think it's the Knight Foundation has the, well, they have this one study that is like, that's like the Bible of this, where it's like less than 1% of the trillions of dollars that are in this space. And you have some outliers like Robert Smith, or like Jose Feliciano, it's a clear leg, shout out to my frat brothers, Jose Feliciano and all the frat brothers out there. Yeah, who are doing amazing and killing it. But there's a law in Chicago, in Illinois rather, that basically forces…
Paula Edgar: Mandates it.
Ray Sanchez: Mandates that there's inclusion of diverse asset managers in all searches. And we're trying to bring that to New York. So basically I got some people to fund me to do that, because I was passionate about it. And that became my practice and I was growing, I was getting referrals, then COVID happened.
Paula Edgar: Then COVID happened.
Ray Sanchez: Then COVID happened, oh my God. I'm going to try to do this quickly, because it's a hell of a story. COVID happens and I think to myself, all right, you know, for a long time, people were like, Ray, you should run for office. I was like, oh God, no. No, thank you. But then COVID happened and I thought to myself, if there was ever a time, where people who actually know how to navigate government, who actually understand how government works, how complicated New York government is, to run, it was that. And again, I was super late to that party. I was like the ninth candidate to jump in that race.
Paula Edgar: Which race was it?
Ray Sanchez: It was District 7, I believe it was. Again, kind of West Harlem, Washington Heights district. And yeah, you know what I mean? I remember I was deciding whether to jump in that race. And I was talking to a buddy, kind of a big brother of mine, who I was pitching trustees with. You can figure out who I'm talking about very quickly and he goes, Ray, no one in this field would want to debate you one-on-one. And I'm like, now I have to chuck it. Now I got to do it, man. You can't say this, now I got to do it.
Paula Edgar: The ego pull, the ego pull.
Ray Sanchez: Ah, come on bro. But again, having campaign fundraising experience.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say, you already knew the space and the people.
Ray Sanchez: Raising the money was the easy part. I banged out the campaign finance money super quick. I raised the money, boom and then I was able to hit the ground in terms of, again, talking about the issues. Honestly, I think I explained ranked choice voting to more people.
Paula Edgar: I still don't get it.
Ray Sanchez: I learned a lot. It was a great experience. I got to talk about the work we did in the borough president's office. I'm super proud of. It forced me to grow in a lot of different ways. But again, it's, you know, I forget the right words for this. You never know what tangents, or what directions you'll end up going in, when you just take a risk in life, right? Because running, you know, I didn't have to jump into that city council race. I could have mind my business and you know, signing clients and building my practice and whatnot. But I decided to jump into city careers, concert racing, a little bit of a masochist. And I'm like, I'm not Dominican. This is, you know, I'm very Dominican, but I need Dominican validators.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Right.
Ray Sanchez: Because I understand how this stuff works. Yes. So I meet with a Dominican, a friend of mine, well-regarded in the community and this person's like, Ray, I was approached by other folks in this race. I will go with you, you're my candidate, but I have a ask. I'm like, okay, what's to ask? This person was on the board of a non-profit called Aguila. Homeless shelter operator with about 11 sites in the Bronx. Mostly in the Bronx, a couple in Harlem, but mostly in the Bronx. And this is all in the papers. It was all in the news. I was on page two of the Post and they said nice things about me.
Paula Edgar: The Post?
Ray Sanchez: The Post, right? Long story short, there was like, again, this is all in the papers. You can look at Daily News, New York Post, it's all there. There was a merger gone wrong. And I was asked to help resolve and clean up this merger gone wrong, gone foul. And so I come in, I'm like, as a favor to Marisol, I'll do this engagement under certain conditions. And one of them was, I'm going to come in here and do my investigation. And when I'm done, I'm sending this to the Charities Bureau, Attorney General. And if you're not cool with that…
Paula Edgar: Some accountability.
Ray Sanchez: … and I don't have full transparency, find someone else. This is how I operate. I want unfettered access to everybody's email, everybody's texts. And once I write, I'm going to write it up and it's going to the Attorney General, end of story. And again, what I didn't know was that the Attorney General was already investigating Aguilar and people around Aguilar. Yeah, I didn't know that. So I get there. I'd been there all of six weeks. All of six weeks. I'm going to talk about personal brand, right? I've been there all of six weeks when the Attorney General raids a number of locations including Aguilar's offices.
Paula Edgar: Oh my gosh, oh my goodness.
Ray Sanchez: So long story short, there's an emergency meeting, board meeting and one of the lawyers who advised the board, another mentor of mine, I've known for years, you know, known him for a long time, good buddy of mine, shout out to Arthur Goldstein, my man. Arthur was like, he called me that morning. He's like, I need a new executive director. Because the executive director is one of the people who got raided that morning at her crib, at her house. At her home, not at her crib, right? At her home. No, so he showed, like, she's got to go. And Arthur's like, they need an executive director. I'm like, yeah, Arthur, who do you have in mind? Arthur's like, you, Ray, you. I'm like, what? Arthur's like, you can do it. You can do it.
Paula Edgar: I just got here.
Ray Sanchez: I just got here. I just got here. What do I know about running a homeless shelter operator? Arthur's like, you can do it. You got this.
Paula Edgar: A lot of people keep saying that to you, right?
Ray Sanchez: It keeps happening. I taught part-time at CUNY, at BMCC. CUNY! My mom graduated from LaGuardia Community College, that's how we got our public assistance. Big up to CUNY. Quick side story, same thing. A buddy of mine, he was a veteran, he enrolled in the military at a really young age and he finished it and he was having a hard time landing a job. And I was like, I think what you need to do is go get a BA. And then it'll make it easier for people to give you a job offer. So, again, like, you know, just trying to be a good friend and mentor or whatever, like, you know, we're basically the same age. I don't know if mentor's the right word, but anyway. So, he goes and he calls me. He's like, hey, I need your resume right now. I'm like, here, take it. I think maybe he's going to use it to model his own or whatnot. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, we need someone to teach Intro to Criminal Justice Fridays at 6. And he needs someone with a JD. So I told him you would do it. I'm like, excuse me?
Paula Edgar: I told him you would do it. It's crazy to me.
Ray Sanchez: He's like, I thought you could do it.
Paula Edgar: I know the right person. I know the guy.
Ray Sanchez: I know the guy. And I go to interview. This is like Wednesday. It's like 48 hours. And I'm like, here's your roster. Here's your textbook. Here's your syllabus. Go up to four. I'm like, when did I say yes? When was there offer and acceptance counselor?
Paula Edgar: You were voluntold, voluntold.
Ray Sanchez: But again, he was like, I'm like, again, I've never done, I've never practiced criminal law. That's what I was going to say, I was going to give you a practice area. I've never practiced criminal law. I've never like, I hadn't taught at that time. And teaching and it's again, another great opportunity. If you're given the opportunity to teach, take it.
Paula Edgar: I just don't want to grade anything.
Ray Sanchez: Grading does suck.
Paula Edgar: I don't want to do that.
Ray Sanchez: Grading is the worst.
Paula Edgar: I don't like that.
Ray Sanchez: You know, I did it for four semesters and it helped me grow in a lot of different ways. And I have a much better appreciation for teachers. You know, people want to talk about criticizing teachers, but they've never been in front of a classroom. And what it means to hold the attention of, you know, 10, 15, 30 people. And whether they're first graders or college students, how do I keep your attention and get this across to you in a way that you'll understand?
Paula Edgar: All right, so let's get forward, because I want to come in. Yeah, I want to go back to where…
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, so to wrap it up, I said yes. I became Executive Director at Aguila. About a week into my tenure, the city was like, we're taking away 10 of your 11 sites and you have to operate this one site, 200-bed hotel in Central Park North, that was actually a pilot program during the height of the pandemic, where it was basically called the COVID Pre-Assessment Center. So think about how many people are in the homeless shelter system at any given time. During the height of the pandemic, if you had people who needed to be quarantined or tested or so forth, they came through that building. So all the other homeless shelter networks were sending kids. Thousands and thousands of people were coming through that building every month. So we had to keep that running.
Paula Edgar: And the safety factor of it, the health, oh my gosh.
Ray Sanchez: We had to keep that running and DHS kept giving us satisfactory remarks, keep that running, while basically transitioning out the rest of the portfolio. And again, I always say, you know, anybody told me they could land that plane better than I did. We mitigated job loss, mitigated loss of services to the community and it was an orderly, orderly unwinding of that portfolio. And I kept those people with me.
Paula Edgar: I think it speaks a lot to when people trust you with trouble. Right? It says that they believe in you, that you are able to navigate uncertainty. And like, there's just a lot that goes into when you have to fix something as you roll. And yeah, even hearing about it, I'm like, whoa.
Ray Sanchez: It was a lot.
Paula Edgar: I'd be like, it's not for me, dog.
Ray Sanchez: It was a lot. It was a lot.
Paula Edgar: No, thanks. I like ease.
Ray Sanchez: But again, being that fixer and problem solver, it's what attracted me to law school. You know and so, you know, I did that. Right. Took, took Aguila out of bankruptcy, dissolved it responsibly. I walked away from that, I would say, I think, August of 2022 at this point. And I was like, all right, I mean, you know, take some much-deserved time off. And you know, cause I know…
Paula Edgar: That was a lot.
Ray Sanchez: So yeah. I'm a big believer in no one's going to give you time off. You got to take it.
Paula Edgar: You know, we do the summer sabbatical over here.
Ray Sanchez: Got to do it. I'm a big believer in health and wellness and self-care. And so I was like, you know, I'll just take some time off. And then one of my frat brothers was executive director of Police Athletic League, called me. He was like, hey, I'm looking for having, you know, I'm looking for referrals for, you know, do anyone have these openings that, PAL, I'm trying to fill. And do you know anybody who fit these roles? And we started talking about, because he just got, he'd never maybe, I think he'd been there about a year. And we're just talking about his experience and he's like, you know, Ray, I got this one building in the Bronx, of course, because my career always brings me back to the Bronx, which is why I love the PX. The PX is nothing but good to me. I got this building up in the Bronx and I can't get a straight answer on who my landlord is. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, all right, send me the docs. I'll figure this out for you, right? So you put me on a retainer, you sent me the docs and I'm like, Carlos, I can figure this out right now. The reason you're getting a runaround at the city level is because this sublease has lapsed and what it's showing me is that the leaseholder has reverted back to the state, and you're getting a runaround at the city, because the leaseholder is actually ESDC, Empire State Development Corp. So again, this is what I get having in my, so we're from my time in the Borough president's office, because it wasn't just city, we were doing a lot of state stuff too. So I was like, I know the guy to call, right? So shout out to Joe Tasbo, one of the great guys in government, true leaders, true public servant at ESDC, Empire State Development Corp. I'm like, Joe, I need to talk to your lawyers about this property, blah, blah, blah. Joe's like, I got you. Puts me in touch with counsel at ESD. I'm like, we need to talk about this leasehold. And I'll swear to God, this is one of the funniest things ever, professionally. The lawyer goes, oh, hey, Ray and I think about being a lawyer is that other lawyers will talk to you. Lawyers will talk to another lawyer, but they won't necessarily talk to a lay person or they won't be as, you know, I'll say the flip side of that here in the story. You know, I'm talking to the lawyer at ESDC and he's like, yeah, you know, I know that building, you know, we negotiated, so we're under a leasehold. He's like, I'll send it to you. I'm like, great, counselor. I would love to see the documents, counselor, crane keeper, right? This really great guy, none of the kind things to say about him, he was so helpful, such a good person. He emails me a couple hours later, he's like, Ray, I have to amend what I said earlier. We drafted the surrender of the leasehold back to the city, but hadn't executed it. And that is when…
Paula Edgar: We're lawyers. You must execute the document.
Ray Sanchez: Right. But that became the unwinding of this really kind of enigma of a problem that had really frustrated PAL for a while. So for you to come in and resolve that fairly quickly, something that had been legal for years, long before Carlos even got there, to unwind that and then pivot to get them over $10 million in counsel and state money to do. Because, you know, and this is the thing, like, so I talked to the lawyer at Empire State, he's awesome. And I'm like, so on the city side, who have you been dealing with? Because that's the next person I got to call now. Because now I'm taking names and I'm going through, now people can get calls, right? And this person, I don't think knew I was a lawyer. And this person was not exactly pleasant to talk to. And was a little rude, quite frankly. And this person said to me, why does PAL care that this is taking so long? And I almost lost it. I kept my composure. What I said to her was like, there are real-world consequences for this not getting done. There is no heat in this building in the winter, no air conditioning in the summer. We're spending $500,000 every winter for external boilers so we can provide services to this high-need community of Black and brown kids who are basically in public housing. Kids like me and I was a PAL kid. I won PAL Medals in Lower East Side, Summer Streets as a kid. So I was looking out for my fraternity brother who's a director. I wanted to get him a win. I wanted to get a win for PAL because I was a PAL kid. And it was just not right. So for this bureaucrat to be like, why does PAL care?
Paula Edgar: Yeah, that's not the right question to ask anyway, right? It's what were you supposed to have done?
Ray Sanchez: This should have been done. You tell me why it fell through the cracks on your end. And what do I need to do to make sure it gets done? And she was like, I don't think there's anything you can do. I was like, okay. You don't know who you're dealing with. I didn't say this, but in my mind, I'm like, you don't know who you're talking to. And now I'll make some phone calls and this is going to get done real quick. And it did.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, good. Basically, if I need something done, I'm going to be like, Con Ed won't call me back. All right, hook it up.
Ray Sanchez: Look, I started nice, but it's just, as the conversation kept going and it's like, okay, you don't seem to understand, again, the real world consequences of this document sitting on your desk. And I think that gets lost a lot of times in government. Right? Because, you know, PAL is an awesome organization. People be like, why does PAL need a lobbyist? Because, again, the government isn't always the most responsive and efficient.
Paula Edgar: That's a kind way of saying it. Okay, so bring me home to where we're at now, because I want to get into talking about your dad.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. You know, so... You know, my dad is—
Paula Edgar: Let me lead you in a little bit for this. So we are, this year, 25 years since 9-11. And as I mentioned at the beginning, we both have this in common. It has been one of my greatest honors to make sure that my mother's legacy has not been reduced to the fact that she was a victim in 9-11. And so I want to start out by asking you, who was your father? Who was Raymond Sanchez Sr. as a man and as your father?
Ray Sanchez: My dad, again, was a proud Union carpenter. Can't say that enough. My dad was a very talented, smart guy.
Paula Edgar: Puerto Rican.
Ray Sanchez: Puerto Rican. From the island, Boricua. Came to New York when he was about seven. Loved scuba diving and fishing and loved being on the water and loved going back to Puerto Rico. or going to Co-op City to fish and eat fish. you know, and eat and, you know, and, you know, he got it, you know, he made some mistakes in his youth. Again, this is the 70s, New York City is a different time, you know, go watch some Fenia records. What was going down in the 70s on the Lower East Side back then. But, you know, my dad, my dad got it together. You know, I don't talk about this very often, but I met my dad when I was seven on South First and Marcy, cause he was, that's where he was doing his rehab. And my dad got clean and I would go to his NA meetings. And then he literally moved right across the street into this small three floor building. And, you know, again, I was just very proud of him for getting his life together, for being disciplined, for...
Paula Edgar: Was he addicted when you were born?
Ray Sanchez: I don't want to go there.
Paula Edgar: No worries, no worries.
Ray Sanchez: You know, no, let’s just say I met my father when I was seven.
Paula Edgar: Understood.
Ray Sanchez: My mom's like, you're going to meet your dad today. And we took the train one stop to Brooklyn and I met my father. My dad was beyond consistent. Because again, I meet him, I'm seven years old and then four years later I go off to boarding school. So that was the thing about our relationship. The minute I came home, he was at the house picking me up. We'd go catch a movie. We'd go to the theater on 3rd Avenue and 13th Street, and catch a movie. We'd go to the UNO's across the street. He'd send me some cash, how was school, what's going on, blah, blah. Every vacation, as soon as I got home, my dad was there to pick me up. What's going on? How are you? What's good? Blah, blah. And then I graduated college and you know, my dad was like, all right, you know, help me get my first, help me move into an apartment with two frat brothers, Brooklyn. But he was just like, he's like, son, always have a plan. And remember, you're smart. But understand that it's not just what you know, it's who you know.
Paula Edgar: Now that's a bar.
Ray Sanchez: My dad was very adamant about that. Not just what you know, it's who you know. And have a plan. And be thinking ahead. And that really sat with me. You know, it was just nice to be home, you know, after being away for a decade. I went off to boarding school when I was 11. I graduated, you know, college at 21. So I've been in New England for most of the year for a decade. I was, again, very grateful for that experience, having that dichotomy of being Lower East Side, but also being in New England and navigating those very different worlds. And then, you know, me and my roommates, they don't want to pay for cable. But we were really into Sopranos, so on Sunday nights, I'd literally go to my dad's house, because we were both on the L train. I'd just take the L from my stop to his stop, all the four stops. And Sunday nights, we'd hang out, watch Sopranos together. There was this one kind of particular special Snapple that he knew I liked, that there was always a case of it in the fridge when I came over. And that was just our time together. My dad would just ask me what's going on in my life. I remember when I graduated Wesleyan and I wrote my thesis, I got honors on it. You got two copies. And I gave my dad one of the copies. And he was just like off the world. He's so fucking proud. He's like, my son wrote a book. Just like so like, you know. But man, my dad, he was a tinkerer. He was really into Mac products. For some reason, he was really into the Terminator. He had a big Terminator poster and it was framed. And he tinkered with his DVD player so that he was able to install a chip so that when he turned on his DVD player, he would see the Terminator, Schwarzenegger. I was like. He was a tinkerer. He just loved technology. He would take apart and put together hard drives and just things like that.
Paula Edgar: That's such a skill. It's like when people say they can play piano by ear, and I'm like, what do you mean?
Ray Sanchez: The guy was a G.D. Carpenter, but he was a big tech dude, loved going to the Macworld stuff and whatnot, loved the ocean.
Paula Edgar: If you were going to describe him in three words, what words would those be?
Ray Sanchez: I would say resilient, direct and spiritual.
Paula Edgar: What do you remember the most about him? So like when you know that kind of laid out who he was just now, what is something that sort of sits in terms of a memory that you have of him?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, I just, you know, he just was just there, you know, when I needed something. You know, like, you know, my tuition bill was short. I would take out a student loan or whatever. I needed to lug my stuff from Middlesex or Wesleyan. My dad came with the car and loaded everything, because he was proud and happy to do it. You know what I mean? Again, if I was home on break, he wanted to see me. That consistency and that pride and that support. Yeah.
Paula Edgar: So take me to September 11th, 2001.
Paula Edgar: What do you remember about that day?
Ray Sanchez: I remember so much and the irony is that we were both there.
Paula Edgar: Tell me more.
Ray Sanchez: I was coming out of the 4-5 train on Wall Street, because we were doing, the Hispanic Federation was doing nonpartisan Latino civic voter engagement to get out the Latino vote that day. So we were supposed to do a training that morning in lower Manhattan. So I was getting off the 4-5 train. And the first planet just hit. And people were talking about it. I'm coming up the stairs. I'm like, what? Just get out of here. In typical New York, like, what the… Like scoffing almost, like, what are you talking about? And then you come up. And I talk about this over and over again, because it's the image of raining, burning paper. Just raining, burning paper everywhere. And people were just freaking out. People were just shook. Because you're seeing this hole in one of the buildings and the smoke. And people were just in awe, right, and cell phones went out, because I think it damaged one of the cell phone towers, that initial plane. So my cell phone was… did I have a cell? I might even have a cell phone. I went to go find a pay phone to call. And while I was doing that, the second plane hit. And at that point, shit hit the fan and people were like, psh. But this whole time, my dad was over at Aon. He was there for a couple of weeks laying floors. I didn't know that.
Paula Edgar: I was going to ask you that next.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, I didn't know that. And so like whatever, like, at the point, the Hispanic Federation, again, I was employed at the Hispanic Federation. And I was like, you know, the office was nearby 85 Williams, or 110 Williams, whatever it was. So we go back. I'm like, let's go back to the office and try to check in with folks. You know, some of us, some people went back to the office, some people just went straight home. And as, and good for and not wrong with that. You know, people want to be home with their kids. Understood, like everyone had different reactions in that moment. My thought was just to go to get to the office and try to figure out what the hell is going on. And while we were in there, the first building collapsed. So all that white dust that basically just blanketed thickly lower Manhattan.
Paula Edgar: And Williams is right in the thick of that.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. So we got evacuated out, I just walked north. I basically walked from there to Williamsburg to my apartment. And the next day, you know, I'm like, you know, like, you know, everything was working, like cable wasn't working. My dad had a pretty solid DVD collection. I was like, let me call my dad and we'll go to his place and grab some movies. And because we hadn't… it was 9-12 and people were trying to figure out what to do with themselves. The world was in shock. And I called my dad's landline and his landlord, who was his neighbor and his friend, picked up the phone. And that's when I was like…
Paula Edgar: Yeah, what's going on?
Ray Sanchez: Because the only other person who had a key to that apartment was me. So what are you doing in my dad's apartment picking up his phone? And she's like, he needs you to call me right now. I go and they're all waiting for me, a lot of my dad's friends, a lot of my dad's mother and sister. All these people were in my dad's apartment, which, oh, again, freaked me out.
Paula Edgar: So they had all known, and you hadn't known?
Ray Sanchez: I hadn't known and they were like, they were just, they couldn't find a phone number for me, because I only got a cell phone at the time.
Paula Edgar: My goodness.
Ray Sanchez: So they didn't know how to get a hold of me. So I get there, they put me on the phone with my dad's best friend, who was also a carpenter and a firefighter. And he's like, your dad was up in the elevators. My dad had went back up looking for his apprentice.
Paula Edgar: So he had gotten out and went back in.
Ray Sanchez: He could have gone out. Like he was trying to, they called the office of Soundstone Floors in Long Island City. They called the office after the first plane had hit and they were like, get your asses out of there. Get home. So, but for whatever reason and I eventually met the apprentice and that was a surreal moment, you know, just, cause you know, I just felt for the kid, like just the guilt that he was carrying, right. You know, just, nobody knew what they were doing that morning. And I talk about that. I got to be at the 9-11 Museum this past September. I'm very grateful to Assemblymember Amanda Septimo. Again, all my friends up in the Bronx. Amanda had been at the museum and there's all these flags at the museum. And Amanda's not Puerto Rican, she's Dominican. Afro-Dominican, proud Afro-Dominican. And she's like, why isn't there a Puerto Rican flag here? And the museum did not have a good answer. So it took some advocacy. But she made it happen. And we ran into each other at a Bronx County dinner or whatever. And she was like, hey, I'm one of our mutual friends. She said, should you be great for this program we're doing for the Spanish Heritage event, where they're gonna install a Puerto Rican flag and they're looking for a family member to speak on behalf, someone to speak on behalf of the families and this mutual friend suggested you. And she's like, would you do it? I was like, man, I'd be honored. And that was a really special day. Even when I did the New York One interview, I think it was 2016, right? And I talked about it that day and for so long, 9-11 was something I just wanted to put behind me. Again, I went straight to law school. I ended up doing the 9-11, I did that interview in 2016, I believe it was, for the 15th anniversary. I had a friend of mine from law school who was like, Ray, I learned more about you in that segment than I did in three years of law school. I had elected officials coming up to me afterwards. Ray, I had no idea, because again, it's nothing I wanted to talk about, man. It's somebody's business, right? Like, you know, but, you know, again, the importance of, of telling these stories, so they're not just names on a wall.
Paula Edgar: It is a powerful driver. And I want to come back to that. I want to rewind a little bit till right after 9-11. So I don't know if you…. I was living in California when 9-11 happened, so I wasn't here. But ironically, the day before, on 9-10, I had gotten a 60-inch television. So this was like when televisions were expensive. And it wasn't even flat, it was one of the big back ones. And so and my boyfriend at the time had woken me up, because I'm in California.
Ray Sanchez: Three hour difference, yeah, it's six in the morning.
Paula Edgar: And said, didn't your mother work in the world trade? And so to see it on television. You know, I always say that I experienced it different than other people do, just because I'm a New Yorker. I don't know what I would have felt like to be a New Yorker and have lost my mother and all of that, because it's the loss of not just the person, but also the New York that you know and the person. But in the experience of coming back, you know, after you're eventually able to fly back and then having to navigate the process, I want to get back to navigating the process of sharing and establishing the worth of your loved one. So when you think about branding, because of your value, your visibility, all the things, one of the most dehumanizing things I've ever experienced was the 9-11 victims compensation fund. Essentially, they make you monetize the value of your lost loved one, who has been killed. They asked questions like, well, how many times did she wash the dishes a week? Did she put you to bed? Things like that. And then they would assess. So when you were talking about the process of having to get the death certificate and all of that, there were so many places. And I helped my father to navigate it, because I had my sisters young. It reminded me of how we need to people better, how we need to be empathetic better. That process was terrible, right, it was unprecedented.
Ray Sanchez: Even Ken Feinberg, who was the administrator of the fund, said afterwards, this was not the way we should have done this.
Paula Edgar: He is not one of my favorite people.
Ray Sanchez: I'm pretty sure, again, I'm pretty sure you can Google this. He said that you know, we should have just given everyone the same amount.
Paula Edgar: It was dehumanizing.
Ray Sanchez: Right, because they literally, you know, come back to equations. They had this equation where how old was the person? What was their income at the time?
Paula Edgar: Were they sick?
Ray Sanchez: How many dependents did they have? Did you live with? And based on these variables, you know, you plugged them in and that came out your number. And that's what you got.
Paula Edgar: So I wanted to divert to come back to that, because I think, when I think about one of the places of value shaped for me, that was one of them, where I remember thinking to myself, whenever I do what I do, I want to do good. And that's why I went to law school. Like the lawyers who helped us to navigate that terrible situation were the ones who were like, you should go to law school.
Ray Sanchez: So I'm really glad you weren't there, because this is, you know, talking about turning points in your life, professionally. So this was like Columbus weekend, so a month after 9-11. And there was some drama and long story short, I got a call from a mentor, who is to this day a mentor of mine, Ricardo Ocando. And Ricardo was like, Nene, Roberto Ramirez is a Bronx County Chairman, his law partner was like, tell me you need some help. So get your butt to Fordham Road manana and we're going to talk. So in that session, you know and this is going to talk… we talk about where representation matters. Because I also want to shout out Mike Carroll, who was the lawyer that the union assigned to me. Mike's a wonderful man. And this is the wow thing, right? I'm a kid that spent a decade in New England in boarding school among white people. And even still, in that time, my mom was like, keep your mouth shut, keep your dad's stuff to himself. And as a lawyer, you know, you can't effectively service your client if you don't have all the facts.
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes, yes.
Ray Sanchez: But because again, like me and my mom, that old immigrant mentality, like, you know, and again, she'd been in the country for at least 20 plus years at that point.
Paula Edgar: She wasn't wrong. It wasn't wrong in terms of the thought, but wrong in terms of the action, I get you.
Ray Sanchez: In terms of the law, it was not. So, long story short, I tell Ricardo everything. And Ricardo walks me through the law. And this old school Puerto Rican lawyer from the Bronx sits me down and they cut the shit, what's going on? And I tell him everything. And when Ricardo walked me through the law, is when the light went on and I'm like, I'm going to law school. That decision was made in that moment. And then I go down to meet with Mike Carroll after I met with Ricardo. And I meet with Mike Carroll and I tell him everything. And Mike Carroll goes, who raised you? Because he was just so impressed. He was just like, I'm 21 years old. He was just mind blown by my journey. And he's like, all we care is that your name is on the beneficiary card, your sister's name is on the beneficiary card, we don't care about anything else and we got you. And so that's when I went on the journey to go to Puerto Rico and get his birth certificate and do all these things to create the record of who my father was. So we're at surrogate court, we get there, Mike goes to be, you're on, he goes, I'm like, what do you mean I'm on? He's like, he's on, you know the file, you put the file, you know the file, go.
Paula Edgar: You're on?
Ray Sanchez: Right, total.
Paula Edgar: That's why.
Ray Sanchez: Right.
Paula Edgar: What do you mean I'm on?
Ray Sanchez: You know, like lawyer, right? Total lawyer moment. I am what on. You're on. Am I a server associate? Am I a 1L? Like, what's going on here? What do you mean I'm on?
Paula Edgar: Talk to the court.
Ray Sanchez: I haven't even taken the LSAT yet. What do you mean I'm on, Mike?
Paula Edgar: May it please the court.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah. Mike's like, you got this, go ahead. And I went document by document and I explained to the clerk and when she was, you know, I finished and I'll just say that, she turned to me and she goes, when you're a lawyer, you'll understand why we made you go through all these hoops. And then she looks at Mike and Mike looks at her, he's going to law school. He's going to law school. Yeah, so, yeah, I haven't talked to Mike here in a very long time, but just, you know, I've been very fortunate, you know, again, just to have great mentors and people who just looked out and
Paula Edgar: So I'm glad we took the time to go through your career trajectory, before we talked about your dad, because I do think you see the catalyst of resilience and what the bones were for you. But tell me what losing your father in this way, how that drove that trajectory to, like, what does it mean for you for that loss? How did it turn you into you? Is what I'm saying to you.
Ray Sanchez: You know, it was another massive moment in time, you know, where the, you know, I think back to Charles Koriak, you know, it's, you know, and Brad Zervast at the Boys Club being like, you've got to, you know, make sure you got to perform for the people so others have the opportunity we afford to do, right? When it comes to my dad, it's, it's that annual day of everything stops, it's his day. And every year I try to hold myself accountable. Am I making decisions and choices that my dad would be proud of? Am I doing things right? We're all imperfect. Every year is different. Every year the anniversary hits differently.
Paula Edgar: Isn’t that the truth.
Ray Sanchez: It's not the same, depending on what's going on in your life and…
Paula Edgar: In the world.
Ray Sanchez: In the world. You know, change is the one true constant. That's another one of the quotes I always come back to. How do you navigate change? How do you get back up, when life knocks you down? I come back to that every year. You know, I think about Aguilar, right? I was like, I got to do this. I got to do this. And I thought of my dad. My dad would want me to go in there and kick ass and hold these people accountable and do the right thing, because that's... That's what it's about. It's a privilege to be able to speak at the museum and talk about him and talk about Puerto Rican contributions to this country. This is literally right after they announced Bad Bunny as the Super Bowl speaker. And it's, you know, and again, these things I talked about in my remarks about how, you know, for a long time, I just want to put 9-11 behind me, right? But 9-11 is not something you move beyond. You just don't. And I was, again, so honored to be there that day, because I think of my dad as a Puerto Rican hero. Again, he went back up. He could have run in that moment of adversity, in that moment of fear. He did the right thing and turned around. If that doesn't show your character, I don't know what does.
Paula Edgar: You're a hundred percent right. And of course your father's a Puerto Rican hero.
Ray Sanchez: But you know, but again, it's, you know, so it's like literally they just announced Bad Bunny as the, as a Super Bowl speaker, Super Bowl halftime performer and all this nonsense being spoken on social media, immediate news outlets. And you know, it was an honor to be at the museum to talk about my dad, to talk about the Buccaneers. You're talking about a Puerto Rican infantry troop recognized by Congress for 100 Purple Hearts. We have fought for this country in every major battle since 1917. How many Puerto Ricans have given their lives for this country? You know, that matters.
Paula Edgar: It does matter. And, you know, I talk about, you know, again, what is Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican was like Eric Gonzalez. He was a Puerto Rican hero to me. And a frat brother.
Paula Edgar: Shout out to Eric Brooklyn.
Ray Sanchez: And I talked about Eric. I talked about Jose Feliciano. Again, we talk about legacy, right? You know, not just, I love legacy, but, you know, legacy is standing up for our communities. And being clear that Puerto Ricans are proud. And we're not going to take it. And we're going to keep standing up. And making sure you acknowledge our contributions to this country.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely.
Ray Sanchez: And again, the importance of standing up for each other. Again, man is like, I'm not Puerto Rican, I'm Dominican, but this is bullshit. We need a flag. And where there's Dominicans standing up for Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricans standing up for Jamaicans, Jamaicans standing up for Bangladesh, I don't care what it is.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, we should be.
Ray Sanchez: We got to be standing up for each other.
Paula Edgar: It's true. You know, one of the things that I realized pretty early on is actually when I had already started law school was they were, you know, there were all these convenings of victims' families. Right. And they would say the term in the news, victims' families. And there were two parts of that where I remember being like, not this family. One was they would have things and they would never talk about the immigrants, it sounded like everybody there was white. And so I was like, I need people to be able to know who my Black Jamaican mother was, who was killed in this tragedy and this terrorist attack. I remember standing up and being like, hello, this is not a full victim's family thing. And it was at a session, where they wanted to go against the mosque that was going to be put into Lower Manhattan. And they were like, we're against the mosque. And I was like, who is we? I was like, I'm not against the mosque. I was like, because it wasn't Muslim people. It was terror… So I really, there was a lot of defining moments where this, when you just said 9-11 doesn't leave you, you were a hundred percent right. And I just wanted to make sure that 9-11 was not going to be the only identifier of who my mother was, right? And so that was one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on here to talk about your father, because that's not the entirety of the existence, right? It's what happened to them, but not who they were.
Ray Sanchez: Exactly.
Paula Edgar: Talk to me if you've ever had to think about that pushback against only being defined by 9-11.
Ray Sanchez: Again, it's why I really just didn't talk about it for a long time. It's why and even now, the only reason I even ended up doing the New York One interview was because one of my favorite people from college, Maria Santana, is a correspondent for CNN. And Maria had wanted me, as for her, to do an interview. Again, that's my sister right there. Like, yeah, I'll do an interview for you. And so I went to my comms guy, John DeSeo. I'm like, hey, my friend wants me to do this interview, blah, blah, blah. I just want to make sure you're cool. And John, God bless him, was still one of my best…John is like great. Why is it the one guy I don't worry about talking to the media is the one guy who always comes to me before I talk into the media? It's like…
Paula Edgar: Because we're lawyers.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, John's like, bro, go ahead. And he was the one that was like, if you want, New York One is looking for people to talk about their loved ones. And I thought, yeah, you know. It's a story of my dad. I haven't talked about my dad's story. And you know, if I'm going to do it for Maria and do it for New York One, just, you know, just get it out, you know and just, you know, pay him service in that regard. Because, you know, I'm going to just very briefly say this. For me, it's very important to, when I celebrate the anniversary, that it's about him and not about me or anybody else. Because I often not create, I'm not… You know what it's like, you know what it's like the day of the anniversary at the memorial.
Paula Edgar: Yes. I have, I've read names six times, five times and I've gone, yeah, it is. It's like a parade of politicians. It becomes a thing to do as opposed to an honoring in full of the loss that happened there. And so I get you. I get you. So, yeah.
Ray Sanchez: So for me, it was just, you know, like most years I just go down and I sit quietly and just wait for his name to be called and I reflect and it's his day. But you know, when I got, you know, I was like, you know, this is, you know, it's, you know, my, I wanted my dad's story to be told, right. And I love the museum. I encourage everyone to go. If you haven't been to the 9-11 Museum, go to the 9-11 Museum, support the 9-11 Museum. But there's, there's got to be other ways in which we honor and tell these stories and preserve these stories. And, and again, make sure, there's inclusion. Why was I at this event back in October? Because you got…
Paula Edgar: A Puerto Rican flag.
Ray Sanchez: A Puerto Rican flag and to your point, right, even right after 9-11, right, it was, it was the Cantor Fitzgerald families and all that. And nothing but, nothing but respect for the Cantor Fitzgerald family. They did a lot of important advocacy to this day that I respect and applaud. But, were the conversations inclusive back then? They weren't. And they still aren't. And there's other things we could talk about, but well, you know.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Yeah. So for everybody who comes on the podcast, I ask them the next few questions and I'm tinkering with the one that I catalyze this with. So I always want to ask about fun. But what I want to ask about fun for you is what are the joyful, fun parts of you today that your dad would recognize and be proud of? The fun things.
Ray Sanchez: You know, I'm a big, you know this, because we're good friends. I'm very much about my yoga and my wellness and my health. And I think my dad would get a hoot out of me doing yoga retreats. Actually, I was in a yoga book. Yeah, this really wonderful couple that I'm friends with put together a book called “My City, My Yoga”. And it's 108 different New York yogis practicing yoga in different spaces. And I'm one of the 108 yogis.
Paula Edgar: We got to link that in the show notes.
Ray Sanchez: Doing wheel in front of the Morris Jameel mansion. It's pretty cool, yeah. I think my dad would get a hoot out of that. And like funny things like, you know, I was at boarding school, right? And I started wrestling in the seventh grade all the way through my freshman year at Wesleyan. And the entire time, my family never saw me wrestle. So I was a freshman and we were wrestling at a tournament at NYU. And I remember my dad came to see me wrestle with my sister. And my dad was just blown away. He's like, son, I didn't know. I didn't know how tough a sport this was. I was like, dad, my son, my dad, you know, he always wore these like big dark shades, like Hector Laveau and shit. My dad was just like, wow, like. So I think my dad would just kick out of that like how just like how much I'm into like just my health and wellness, because again like someone who was in rehab and you know, that was something that's really important, you know, but you know living a healthy life and whatnot. I think my dad would get a kick out of that. My dad loved old-school salsa, you know, like so I'm sure he'd get a kick out of me getting my dance on.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say, he did be cutting up a rug.
Ray Sanchez: Back in the day.
Paula Edgar: Fun fact, guys, I've only jumped off of a bar with one person in my entire life and it's this man right here. I'm like, I adore him. We've had wonderful experiences together and dancing is definitely one of them on the bar. Yes, that is definitely fun. Tell me this. The podcast is called BRANDING ROOM ONLY. I like to use room and brand and all kinds of things to kind of connect a lot of things. And one of the things is stand by your brand. What is the authentic aspect of your personal brand that you will never compromise on?
Ray Sanchez: You know, I come back to, you know, the Aguilar story. I'm going to do it right, I'm going to be transparent and I'm going to call out what needs to be called out. And if you don't, even if that's not, if you're not cool with that, then don't, then I'm not your guy. Right, there's a right and a wrong, right? And I just, that's what I'm going to stand on. This is right, this is wrong. You know, yeah, okay. I remember during the steroid scandal and baseball.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say which one.
Ray Sanchez: Baseball… And you know, they were asking all the players and somebody said, oh, well, everybody was doing it. And Derek Jeter was like, no, actually not everybody was doing it. You know, cause it's real easy to go along when, you know, what is… being ethical is doing the right thing when nobody's looking.
Paula Edgar: Yep. What are your values? Who are you?
Ray Sanchez: Right. What are you doing the right thing when no one is looking? That's what it comes down to. And are you holding yourself accountable? We're all going to make mistakes. We're all human. We're all imperfect. But are you leaving stuff better than you found it? Right. Are you standing on integrity? Are you doing the right thing when no one's looking? Again, that's why when Arthur was like, we need someone to be the executive director of Aguilar.
Paula Edgar: It's you.
Ray Sanchez: But partly because, again, of my credibility in city government and what I had done.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, it's clear. I think that, again, I didn't know who you were at 21, but I do think one of the things that shaped me from losing my mother was that the rod of right and wrong became very firm, right? So if it might have been a little wavy before, because, you know, it was firm, it was like, you know what, if tomorrow's not promised and I say that all the time, then I want to make sure the impact that I have on the world today is a powerful one. And so I'm glad you said that, because I do believe people need to be, especially now, values aligned and act as such. So there's that. The next question that I ask everybody is, so the podcast is called Branding Room Only, because I'm clever and I think standing room only. So what if you were in a room full of folks, no seats at all and people are coming to find out and experience something about you, your magic. What would that thing be that would only be standing room only?
Ray Sanchez: Man, when I was at Brown Brothers, my manager, I said, he gave me the best compliment. And it comes up a lot. People are always noticing this. And he was like, Ray's got a really special talent that you can give him something complex and he could very quickly synthesize it and turn it around to you, in a way anyone else can understand it. Yeah. That's, you know, I really, just really appreciated that.
Paula Edgar: That's clear from your trajectory too. Clearly.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, it's like, how do you, again, solve problems, connect dots? I remember like my first week there, you know, we had gotten a subpoena. Again, it's a million subpoenas every year from, you know, from the SEC on a transaction that we weren't the broker on in Houstonia. And so, you know, she was, again, it's my 2L summer of law school. And she goes, you know, she's giving me the context. Again, I'm still learning what, you know, institutional asset bank asset management is and what a global custodian does and four trillion in assets in custody and all this, you know, the 40 Act.
Paula Edgar: All of these terms that I know nothing about.
Ray Sanchez: The 40 Act, Company Act, Investment Act, like learning all that. And long story short, right, I'm like, if they're trying to call us out for something that we don't do, shouldn't we start there? And the guy who had been there was like, no, you don't talk to the regulator like that. And she's like, the law school student's correct. He's right. That's the way we're doing it. Give the ball to Ray.
Paula Edgar: Give the ball to Ray. I love that.
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, so I think, again, I think that's just, you know, something I, it's just one of those kind of just gifts that I'm very grateful to have.
Paula Edgar: So how can people stay in contact with you, find out more about you? What's the way that they should know what the Ray story is, what the next step is? LinkedIn?
Ray Sanchez: Yeah, LinkedIn and Instagram are the best way to get a hold of me. Ray Sanchez Jr. LinkedIn/Raymond Sanchez Jr. is where you can get a hold of me.
Paula Edgar: Fantastic.
Ray Sanchez: My Instagram is Ray Sanchez, but turned a Z to a S, because ESQ. So Ray Sanchez with a Q, not a Z.
Paula Edgar: We'll put it in the show notes, too.
Ray Sanchez: And an S, yeah.
Paula Edgar: Ray, my friend. I want to thank you for taking the time to talk about your extensive and fascinating career journey and your brand. And I want to thank you for continuing to elevate the life and legacy of Raymond Sanchez Sr and talking about the impact of September 11th and what it's meant for these two and all of the rest of the family members of victims of September 11th. I'm proud to have you on my podcast. Love you, love you, love you. And everybody, make sure, number one, you tell somebody about this fascinating man's story. And share this podcast. And remember to hold on to the people who you love. Thank you.
That's it for this episode. I appreciate you hanging out with me on BRANDING ROOM ONLY. Now, please do me a quick favor. Head over to ratethispodcast.com/branding, so more people can join this conversation. And make sure to stop by paulaedger.com/events to see what's next. Whether I'm live, online or in person, I'd love to see you there. See you next time in the Branding Room.
And until then, stand tall, shine bright, and always stand by your brand.
