Meet Manolo Reyes

Manolo Reyes is a native of Victoria de Las Tunas, Cuba and migrated to the United States with his parents in 1959 seeking political refuge from Fidel Castro’s regime.  He soon received his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in economics at the University of Florida in Gainesville and is an active Gator Alumni in the South Florida community.  In the 1980s he launched his career as a budget and finance administrator for the City of Miami, where he served as the principal economic analyst for the Overtown Park West Redevelopment Project, considered by many the footprint of the redevelopment of the Omni area in Downtown Miami.  He later was principal budget analyst for Miami Dade County Public Schools, and served on the City of Miami Code Enforcement Board and the City of Miami’s Homeland Security and Neighborhood Improvement Bond Issue Oversight Board. Reyes is a former small business owner.  Having built a family business from the ground up, he knows what it takes to create jobs, keep costs low and produce revenue. He continues to consult local and international businesses today on their finances and economics.  Reyes also taught economics at Miami Dade College and currently teaches math and economics at Westland High School, where he leads its FIU dual enrollment program in economics. Reyes has lived in District 4 for more than four decades with his with Selva “Chacha” Reyes, where together they raised their daughter Meily Reyes, mother to Maximo Cruz, and son Manuel “Manny” Reyes, father to Matthew Francis Reyes.