"Kelly Candaele: Walk a Day in My Shoes!”

Local 99 Member invites LACCD Trustee to come to work with him

On a hot day in July, Los Angeles Community College District Trustee Kelly Candaele worked alongside Ismael Villanueva, an HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) Maintenance Assistant at L.A. City College. Together, they spent the day checking and changing the filters of the campus’ air conditioning units, sometimes on rooftops, other times in dark crawl spaces in basements.

“When you have employees like Ismael, they’re diamonds and they’re very, very valuable to the whole system because other people look at him and they see how hard he’s working, how he goes out of his way to fix things,” says Candaele. “He’s a very interesting guy. He’s a musician and a mathematician—he’s got a lot of talents in addition to the work he does here for the college. It was fascinating getting to know him as a person.”

Ismael gets up every morning at 3:30 AM to commute from Bakersfield to L.A., first dropping his wife off at her job downtown, and then starting his day at L.A. City College at about 5:15. That schedule wouldn’t be so bad if Ismael wasn’t also in school every evening until 10:00 PM to learn how to become an HVAC Technician. “I get about 3½ hours of sleep at night. I catch up on the weekends.”

Ismael and his wife live so far away because that’s where they can afford a house large enough for his aging parents and other family members to live with them. “Family is really important to us. It’s worth the commute to have everyone together and to be a homeowner.”

Even though the students may not interact with Ismael, Candaele came to realize that they “benefit in ways they don’t even know. They’re very lucky to have someone like Ismael here. The work that he does is profoundly important.”

“I really liked having the company today,” says Ismael of the experience. “Normally, I work alone. With Mr. Candaele helping me, we got stuff done quickly!”

Eventually, Ismael would like to take his love of music and math into the classroom. He plans to continue his education and become a teacher.

See more photos from the day...