Fernando Mateo

Fernando Mateo (born 1959) is President of Hispanics Across America and the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers. He spent most of his youth in New York City.

Fernando Mateo was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in a poor neighborhood on Manhattan’s lower east. In 1976, at age 17, he opened his own floor covering business with the money he saved and a $2000 loan from his father. The company, Carpet Fashions Floor Covering, soon grew to include a showroom in midtown Manhattan catering to residential and commercial clients.

Fernando believes that a good business is a socially responsible business. His first major public service initiative was to finance and develop an apprenticeship program at Rikers Island Correctional Facility in New York. Open to first time, non-violent offenders, the Mateo Institute of Training (M.I.T.) provided inmates training in various construction trades. When released from Rikers, M.I.T. graduates possess marketable job skills to earn honest livings. The program succeeded with most M. I. T. graduates obtaining good wage positions and very few returning to crime. M. I. T. not only saved New York City millions of dollars, but perhaps saved the lives of many of its graduates.

Based on an idea of his teenage son, Fernando conceived Toys for Guns during Christmas 1993 as a means to remove illegal guns from the street. The program offered a $100 gift certificate to Toy ‘R’ Us to anyone who turned in a gun to the 34th precinct (no questions asked). The public’s response to the program was overwhelming. While Toys for Guns was only to run through Christmas, it rapidly spread through all five boroughs as other sponsors came forward to fund the program. Toys for Guns evolved into the non-profit Goods for Guns Foundation of which Fernando is Chairman. During 1996 and 1997, the foundation launched the largest disarmament program ever in El Salvador and Columbia.

In 1994 Fernando established Mateo Express, a licensed money transfer company, whose mission is to provide reliable money transfer service at reasonable prices to the Latino community. Mateo Express has grown dramatically since its inception and has achieved its goal and gained the reputation as one the most dependable and honest money transfer companies servicing the community.

During his work with the Dominican community at Mateo Express, Fernando became aware that Dominican citizens residing in New York did not have absentee voting rights. Fernando believed this great injustice should be remedied immediately as the Dominican Republic was among the only Latin American country that did not grant its citizens absentee voting privileges. In mid 1997 Fernando founded Movimiento Por-Voto del Dominicano en el Exterior whose purpose was to organize support in the United States to petition the Dominican government to permit absentee ballots. On September 22, 1997 Fernando delivered petitions signed by more than 100,000 Dominican citizens residing in the United States and Venezuela. He was received by the President of the Senate and spoke on behalf of the Movimiento’s to the Dominican Congress. On December 19, 1997 the Dominican Congress passed legislation which grants Dominicans absentee voting rights. On December 26, 1997 President Leonel Fernandez signed the legislation into law. As a result of Fernando’s efforts the political landscape of the Dominican Republic has been dramatically altered. In recognition of his efforts Fernando received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from The University CDEP in Santo Domingo

Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor David Dinkins, Senator Robert Dole have honored Fernando. President George Bush designated Fernando as a Shining Point of Light. Fernando has provided expert witness testimony to the New York City Council on the issue of kids and guns and has lectured and served as a panelist for numerous forums on youth violence. He has been a guest of President Clinton during the signing of the Crime Bill and also served as an advisor to the Clinton transitional team in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In recognition of his community service and business success, Fernando has been cited as one of People Magazine’s “Amazing Americans” and featured in numerous publications. He has been honored as “Person of the Week” by ABC World New Tonight and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, PBS, and syndicated shows including Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donohue, and Geraldo. He continues to believe and demonstrate that a good business is socially a responsible business.

Fernando serves on the Board of Directors of organizations including the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government, New York/New Jersey Minority Purchasing Council and the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans together with Goods For Guns Foundation.

Awards Fernando has received include:

• 1990 Small Business of the Year New York Chamber of Commerce

• 1991 Minority Firm of the Year New York State Department of Commerce

• 1991 Points of Light Award President George Bush, Washington DC

• 1991 Volunteer of the Year Award New York City Mayor David Dinkins

• 1991 Commissioner’s Award New York, City Department of Corrections

• 1991 Unsung Hero Award McDonalds

• 1991 Fred Astaire/Donovan Award New York Therapeutics Community

• 1991 Citation - Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger

• 1991 Proclamation Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer

• 1992 Jaycees’72 Dominican Republic

• 1992- Honored in the Dominican Republic by the President Dr. Joaquin Balaguer

• 1993 Entrepreneur of the Year Ernst & Young

• 1993 Proclamation - Westchester County Executive Andrew O’Rourke

• 1993 Minority Business of the Year Minority Business Reporter, Chicago, IL

• 1993 Vista 2000 Award for Excellence in Community Service - The National Soc

• 1994 Keynote Speaker - First Annual Small Business Banking & Finance Expo’94

• 1994 Presidential Medal John Jay College of Criminal

• 1994 Advocate for Youth Award American Camping Association

• 1994 Stop the Violence Award New York City Comptroller Allen G. Hevesi

• 1994 Father of the Year National Father’s Day Committee

• 1994 Award for Social Responsibility Women Executives in Public Relations

• 1994 Community Service Award Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund

• 1994 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Service Award Boy Scouts of America

• 1994 Hispanic of the Year Hispanic Magazine

• 1995 Proclamation New York City Council

• 1998 The Ellis Island Medal of Honor National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations Foundation, Inc.

His business web side is carpetfashion.com

Capitalist

Dropping out of Seward Park High School at the age of 15-due to what he described as an inhospitable learning environment-he began what would become an extremely prosperous entrepreneurial career, opening his first store at the age of 17. In addition to working as a successful contractor, Mateo established Carpet Fashions Inc., a carpet-furnishing franchise located in lower Manhattan, which generated a multi-million dollar business throughout the borough.

Mateo, in addition to selling his wares to affluent upper West Siders, also marketed his product to those New Yorkers who lived in tenements and high-rise apartments, most of which had unfurnished floors.

Activist

In 1998, Mateo founded the New York State Federation Of Taxi Drivers, a lobbying group and union of sorts composed primarily of livery cab drivers. He states his intention was to solve the persistent problem of what had become an increasing number of, and escalation in brutality of, attacks on its membership. The history of the organization's founding, and how Mateo came to be the chairman and spokesperson is unclear. The organization deals mainly with New York City driver-related issues, rather than New York State as a whole.

Through his connections, he was able to become a regular on the news, speaking on behalf of drivers in a wide variety of venues, even as other taxi workers organizations working in the trenches with drivers received more limited attention. He has branched out into many other issues, but Mateo is chiefly known as a spokesperson for livery cab drivers lobbying elected officials, staging highly-publicized press conferences, and speaking with mainstream media outlets whenever a livery cab driver is murdered or assaulted in a particularly brutal manner. He garnered the attention of top Republican officians, and been appointed to various commissions.

Another signature issue for Mateo is his Toys for Guns drive, which Mateo began in 1993 at the behest of his son. Started in Washington Heights-where his family lived before moving to Westchester County-the premise behind the program was that taking guns off the streets through gun exchanges would gradually, but inexorably, reduce crime.

He then established a not-for-profit organization, Goods For Guns Inc., which attempts to expand upon Mateo's original idea by offering peer conflict resolution, establishing national gun exchanges, and formulating ideas aimed at preventing crimes involving handguns, especially those used by urban youth.

Political Arena

Mateo utilized his media visibility as an entrepreneur and community activist to become involved in Republican politics at a municipal, statewide, and national level.

Even though he is known chiefly for his involvement in GOP politics — he was one of the co-founders of the first GOP club in New York City composed of Dominican immigrants — Mateo has cultivated an image as a wildcard at times, willing to work with different, and sometimes hostile, political factions in order to achieve his goals, some of which his critics have described as quixotic.

Throughout his career Mateo has collaborated with both Al Sharpton and George Pataki—whom he has supported and criticized at different intervals in his career-as well as Michael Bloomberg who enlisted him in his re-election campaign with a specific focus on Latino outreach.

Perhaps his most notable achievement to date in this regard was a speech delivered to the 2004 Republican National Convention, which was held in New York City in August of that year.

Today

Fernando Mateo has also served as an advocate for this nation's immigrants, including taking a controversial stance on the issue of driver's licenses issued to New York residents who are thought to be in this country illegally, or who do not have proper legal documentation verifying their immigration status.

In what he perceives as a compromise on the subject, Mateo has offered a proposed solution, which would create a 'Immigrant Driver Permit' designed specifically to forestall the suspension or revocation of these drivers' licenses, and to allow authorities to track alien drivers whose immigration status could not otherwise be verified.[1]

Mateo has also supported President Bush's guest-worker visa program, which many critics have dubbed a thinly-veiled amnesty proposal.

According to the New York Sun, Mateo's name has been considered during discussions over who will fill a seat on the CUNY Board of Trustees, one that has been vacant since the resignation of Jeffrey Wiesenfeld.

In August 2006, Mateo held a public press conference denouncing the intentions of Survivor producer Mark Burnett to stage a contest between contestants of different races in his show's upcoming season. Describing this plan as an "offensive and cheap trick" intended to boost the reality TV program's allegedly declining ratings he went on to assert that the show will deepen pre-existing racial tensions, and lead to a rise in gambling and violence. [2]

In December 2010, Mateo made some pro-racial profiling remarks in the case of gun-shot taxi-cab driver: "“You know sometimes it’s good that we are racially profiled because the God’s-honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics." "Clearly everyone knows I’m not racist. I’m Hispanic and my father is black. ... My father is blacker than Al Sharpton.”

References

-Carbo, Rosie "1994 Hispanic Achievement Awards, Fernando Mateo: Community Service," Hispanic, September, 1994

-Rau, Jordan Rau "The Dominican Factor: Group struggles with political growing" Newsday, Aug 25, 2002

-Rigg, Cynthia "Fernando Mateo-New York Rising Star-40 under 40| Crain's New York's Rising Stars" Crain's New York, 1992

-Smith, Ben "Wiesenfeld and Mateo," New York Daily News, June 28, 2006

External links

• Hispanics Across America
• Lou Dobbs Tonight Panel Discussion Of Illegal Immigration
• Cheer A-Rod An Alex Rodriguez appreciation site, started by Fernando Mateo
• A farewell to arms - gun control
• Hispanic Fernado Mateo vs. Jennifer Wilbanks
• Hispanics seek apology from runaway bride
• Immigrant Driver's Permits: A Perilous Two-Tier System
• Fernando Mateo, 33, President, Carpet Fashions Inc.
• Racial Survivor draws flak