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Leading with a "'Si, se puede’ attitude"

Connie Perez-Andreesen, daughter of farmworkers, now helps lead nation’s largest farmworker union

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 11^th, 2022

This is the fourth in a series of 2022 CSUB Alumni Hall of Fame profiles.

When Connie Perez-Andreesen was applying for accounting jobs as graduation from CSUB neared, she hesitated to apply to the biggest firm in town.

“They wouldn’t hire someone like me, this little Mexican from a farm labor camp,” she thought.

But CSUB Professor Mary Doucet convinced her to apply anyway. It was good advice.

Perez-Andreesen would go on to rise from staff accountant to one of only two Latinas to make partner at the Kern County-based regional firm, the result of long hours in the office, exhaustive travel and a talent for engaging clients.

The resume and reputation she built led to prestigious community service appointments locally and statewide and ultimately to the work she’s doing now: day-to-day management of the largest farmworker union in the country, the United Farm Workers.

Perez-Andreesen is the chief administrative officer and national vice president of the UFW, overseeing financial management, HR and fundraising. It was her professional experience and personal story that led the UFW to hire her as controller in 2017 and then elevate her to top administrator a year later, said UFW President Teresa Romero.

“She has the ‘Si, se puede’ attitude,” said Romero, referencing the union’s famous motto, “Yes we can.” “We have had tremendous challenges for many decades and we want to have on our staff people who have that attitude. Connie embodies that.”

Connie Perez-Andreesen introduced Jill Biden when the first lady visited Forty Acres March 31, 2021, along with Gov. Gavin Newsom and others to celebrate Cesar Chavez Day. Forty Acres, the historic headquarters of the United Farm Workers, was a COVID-19 vaccination site for farm workers. — Connie Perez-Andreesen introduced Jill Biden when the first lady visited Forty Acres March 31, 2021, along with Gov. Gavin Newsom and others to celebrate Cesar Chavez Day. Forty Acres is the historic headquarters of the United Farm Workers.

CSUB has been a huge beneficiary of Perez-Andreesen’s success. She serves on the CSUB Latino/Latina Advisory Council and as vice chair of the CSUB Foundation Board, which advises the fundraising and advocacy arm of the university.

And she and her attorney husband, Joel Andreesen, donated $150,000 to CSUB’s Center for Social Justice and Roadrunner Scholarship Fund last year – helping ensure there will be many more Connie-like success stories among current and future Roadrunners.

A tight-knit community

Perez-Andreesen’s parents, Jesus and Consuelo Perez, came to the United States from Mexico in 1975 to work in the fields. Her mother was pregnant with her at the time. They settled in the Woodville Farm Labor Camp eight miles west of Porterville.

It was a tight-knit community where everyone looked out for one another.

“I couldn’t do anything wrong,” Perez-Andreesen said, “because by the time I got home, my mom had already heard about it.”

Perez-Andreesen at 3 months old. — Perez-Andreesen at 3-months-old.

Perez-Andreesen at 1 year old. — Perez-Andreesen at 1-year-old.

Perez-Andreesen at 4 years old. — Perez-Andreesen at 4-years-old.

Her father eventually moved up to maintenance man at the camp and her mom to working in its preschool. They had two more children, a son, Jesus, and daughter, Yannine.

There weren’t many amenities at the camp, just a big park where everyone hung out and a library next to the main office from which Perez-Andreesen checked out books on Fridays. When the library closed one summer due to budget cuts, it was a blow.

“We were all devastated because that’s all we had,” she remembered. “This is before Internet. We didn’t have cable. We had one TV in the house for four people.”

When Perez-Andreesen was a junior in high school, her parents bought a house in Porterville and she began attending Monache High School. Her dream back then was to get married, have kids and live happily ever after. She didn’t know anyone who’d gone to college.

Perez-Andreesen and her mother, Consuelo, at 6-months-old.

Perez-Andreesen with her brother, Jesus, the day of his baptism.

Perez-Andreesen first started hearing about college from the family of a high school boyfriend who owned a dairy and lived in a beautiful home at which she’d do her homework. After graduation she attended Porterville College for a year, working as a cashier at Target and for a local trophy shop.

She was making what to her was good money, and so dropped out of college. Then one day the trophy store manager was having a bad day and took it out on her.

“He was just miserable,” she remembered. “And I was like, ‘Ugh, that’s going to be me. Like, is that the life I want, you know living paycheck-to-paycheck and just miserable?’”

So she re-enrolled in Porterville College, focused on school, got straight As, and took a few classes at Bakersfield College before enrolling at CSUB.

Stepping up for family

Perez-Andreesen majored in business administration with a concentration in accounting. A high school teacher had first exposed her to accounting, and she’d done a little bookkeeping for the trophy shop and liked it.

She keenly focused on her studies, especially the summer before graduation when her brother was shot and killed at age 19, leaving behind a 1 ½-year-old son, Fernando, that Perez-Andreesen wanted to help take care of financially, in addition to her parents.

“My sister, a young 20-year-old trying to navigate college, was definitely put into a position, or at least the way she saw it, of having to step up in our family,” Yannine Mendoza Cruz, Perez-Andreesen’s sister, said.

“I very much see her as another mother figure in my life and as a support system for our parents as much as their daughter. “…I think that informed a lot of what you see happen after.”

Perez-Andreesen (far right) and her family at her sister’s graduation from UC San Diego in 2011. L to r: Her father, Jesus, mother, Consuelo, nephew, Fernando, and sister, Yannine.

Perez-Andreesen and her family at the spot where her father crossed the border into the United States.

What happened after was earning a degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting in 2000. It not only marked a personal achievement for her but paved the way for her sister to go away to UC San Diego and embark on a successful career. Mendoza Cruz lives in Oakland and runs an artisanal salsa business, Kuali Salsas, with her husband.

“I’m very proud of what she’s accomplished, and you can’t underestimate the ripple effect that her success and her journey has had on me as a sister and on other people within her network,” Mendoza Cruz said.

Just before graduating from CSUB, Perez-Andreesen applied to several local accounting firms except one: the biggest and most prestigious one in town. Doucet, the CSUB professor, noticed and persuaded Perez-Andreesen to overcome her hesitancy and apply.

The big firm, just like the others, offered her a job and she accepted it.

Committed to excellence

When Perez-Andreesen started at the firm, she was intimidated. She had never seen such fancy offices and conference rooms. They let her take on different assignments to see what she enjoyed best, and so during audit season she did audits and during tax season she did taxes.

Perez-Andreesen also started traveling five days a week to serve out-of-town clients, often times with her boss and now close friend Amanda Wilson-Rappaport. The job continued to open up new experiences for her: nice things, nice restaurants and new foods, including her first sushi.

One day a work colleague, thinking he was helping her, told Perez-Andreesen during a work trip that she’d never make partner. Look at the makeup of the partners: all white and mostly male, she recalled him telling her.

He suggested she go work for the county, where she could work from 8 to 5 and earn good benefits, she said.

“I went to my hotel room that night and cried,” Perez-Andreesen said. “Then I woke up and I was like, ‘I’m going to show him.’”

She aligned herself with a partner that could give her important assignments, and worked hard on them. And she kept getting promoted.

Perez-Andreesen was conscientious and committed to excellence from the start, Wilson-Rappaport said.

Back then, she said, a staff accountant like Perez-Andreesen would work on audits with a client during the week and a senior manager like Wilson-Rappaport would review the staffer’s work, meet with the client and jot down questions and corrections to address later.

During one of her and Perez-Andreesen’s first joint client visits, Perez-Andreesen got anxious every time Wilson-Rappaport took a note on her yellow legal pad, and asked what she was doing. Wilson-Rappaport kept assuring her everything was OK, that her note-taking was just part of the teaching process.

When Wilson-Rappaport got up to talk to the client for a few minutes, Perez-Andreesen took hold of the notepad and responded to all the comments.

“She’s like, ‘Oh, I already fixed the things you wrote down,’” Wilson-Rappaport said, laughing. “That really showed conscientiousness, commitment to excellence. Rather than just kind of going through the motions of her job, she really wanted to do a great job.”

Perez-Andreesen and her former boss, now close friend, Amanda Wilson-Rappaport volunteering at an animal sanctuary in Utah in 2016.

When Wilson-Rappaport worked late and weekends, Perez-Andreesen worked late and weekends. When Perez-Andreesen was asked to travel a lot, she did so without complaint.

“She was all about paying her dues and doing whatever she needed to do for the greater good of serving the clients and the firm,” Wilson-Rappaport said.

That included forming strong relationships with clients, taking them to lunch and initiating engaging conversation, Wilson-Rappaport said. One of the keys to making partner is becoming a rainmaker through strong client development and relationship-building, she said.

“She’s very smart and articulate and people like having her around,” Wilson-Rappaport said.

Perez-Andreesen said she basically had no life outside work during the 10 years it took to make partner. Once she did, she was able to help make decisions about the firm’s future and manage her own clients.

She eventually moved to Pasadena and opened a Southern California office, where she enjoyed the social scene but began to tire of the long hours and constant travel. One day she was sitting at her kitchen table working when a friend suggested a new challenge: trying to unseat Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford.

“I started laughing,” she recalled. “I have never run for anything in my life. Not even student council.”

Democratic Party officials convinced Perez-Andreesen to run, and she flew to Washington, D.C., for meetings with the California Democratic congressional delegation including now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But her candidacy was short-lived. She announced her bid on Oct. 9, 2015, and withdrew it a month later.

There were many reasons why, but the bottom line was that she was not ready. Perez-Andreesen has been politically active in other ways, including hosting fundraisers for local Democrats and knocking on doors in Maricopa County, Ariz., for a month during last year’s presidential race.

Perez-Andreesen campaigned for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign for a month in 2020. The Democrats won the state by just three-tenths of a percentage point.

Perez-Andreesen left the accounting firm and took some time off before starting a consulting company that operated for about a year. That’s when Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, asked if she knew anyone who’d be interested in its controller position.

Perez-Andreesen was interested. She applied, got the job, and learned that’s what Rodriguez hoped for all along.

“It brought me back to my roots,” Perez-Andreesen said. “I’m the daughter of farm workers. I grew up in the labor camp.”

When Perez-Andreesen got to the UFW, its auditing wasn’t where it needed to be, Romero, the current union president, said. Perez-Andreesen and her team dived into the issues, found the weaknesses and addressed them head-on.

“Her transparency and integrity were key for me,” Romero said. “That’s a position where I have to have someone I can trust implicitly, and she is that person.”

When Romero succeeded Rodriguez as UFW president, she wanted someone who could oversee several departments because she didn’t think she could do it on her own. Perez-Andreesen agreed to become chief administrative officer in late 2020.

“She brings to it a fresh mind,” Romero said. “We’ve had people here who’ve been doing this for 30, 40 years and she’s been able to sit down with these amazing individuals dedicated to the union and through conversation and understanding improve the ways things go.”

Perez-Andreesen with her nephew, Fernando, when President Barack Obama announced the establishment of the César E. Chávez National Monument in 2012.

Perez-Andreesen with UFW President Teresa Romero at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s winery in Napa during a march last year urging him to sign a bill allowing farmworkers to vote to unionize by mail.

Perez-Andreesen with labor leader and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta (middle) and Perez-Andreesen’s sister, Yannine Mendoza Cruz, during a Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event.

That includes strengthening ties with the UFW’s sister agencies the UFW Foundation and Cesar Chavez Foundation, developing relationships with local elected officials and UFW-endorsed political candidates, and cultivating new donors, Romero said. Half the UFW budget comes from dues, half from donations.

One of the UFW’s most high-profile recent legislative efforts was pushing for a bill allowing farmworkers to vote to unionize by mail instead of only at the work site where they can face supervisor intimidation, Perez-Andreesen said.

When the legislation reached Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk last year and he declined to meet with the union about it, the UFW organized a march from Farmersville in Tulare County to Sacramento. Just before the final mile, it got a call from the governor’s office saying a veto was coming, Perez-Andreesen said.

So the marchers drove to Napa for a peaceful protest in front of the French Laundry, site of Newsom’s infamous November 2020 attendance of a birthday party during lockdown. Then they walked to the governor’s winery six miles away.

The governor, who cited inconsistencies in the legislation for his veto, wasn’t at the winery but the UFW got the media attention it wanted. It plans to try again with the bill this year.

“Hopefully, he’ll sign the bill,” Perez-Andreesen said. “If not, we’ll probably do another march.”

The march starts in Farmersville in Tulare County. Behind Perez-Andreesen is Andres Chavez, director of strategic initiatives at the Cesar Chavez Foundation, and her husband, Joel Andreesen.

The march reaches Napa, where Gov. Gavin Newsom owns a winery.

Not taking "no"

Outside of work, Perez-Andreesen has served in a number of community service roles. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her to the State Lottery Commission, where she served as vice chair and chair of the audit committee. She mentors young girls through Latina Leaders of Kern County and is a member of the Bakersfield City Council’s Public Safety/Vital City Services Oversight Committee, which reviews the expenditure of money raised through the voter-approved Measure N sales tax increase.

Perez-Andreesen is as tenacious with her philanthropy as she is with her career, said Sylvia Mendez, who has been good friends with her since recruiting her to serve on the board of Children Joining Children for Success. The nonprofit raises money for, and puts on, an annual holiday event for foster and at-risk children that treats them to a night of ice skating and introductions to mentors who share their stories of success through adversity.

Mendez taught her how to fundraise – identifying potential supporters, learning what interests them philanthropically and circling back to those who don’t respond right away – and she ran with it, tapping her great organizational and accounting skills, Mendez said.

“She learned well, she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” said Mendez, founder of Sylvia Mendez & Associates in Bakersfield, a court reporting firm.

“She’s an asset wherever she goes. She has great organizational skills; she is willing to do the work and she dives right in. She will walk miles if she has to, miles if she has to. Whatever she has to do.”

Perez-Andreesen has returned to her alma mater, Woodville Elementary School, to speak at career day and be an example of what they, too, can accomplish.

Perez-Andreesen speaks at a Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event where she was honored as businesswoman of the year. Beside her is friend and mentor in philanthropy Sylvia Mendez.

Perez-Andreesen mentors young Latinas as part of Latina Leaders of Kern County. Here she is with her now 4-year-old daughter, Valentina.

Mendez believes that Perez-Andreesen’s work ethic in part stems from her upbringing in a family and community where children tend to take on big responsibility early. Oftentimes parents are off to work at 5 a.m., leaving their older children to help their younger ones eat breakfast, get to school, and do their homework and chores, she said.

“We do what we have to do, and we become very responsible,” said Mendez, whose childhood in Delano was similar to Perez-Andreesen’s. “That creates an incredible asset and a characteristic in a professional.”

Perez-Andreesen is also on the Bakersfield College Foundation Board and served in a partnership between Kern Medical, the Cesar Chavez Foundation, the UFW and the Latino COVID Taskforce to take vaccine clinics to underserved communities.

Last year, Perez-Andreesen and Joel Andreesen donated $150,000 to the CSUB Center for Social Justice and Roadrunner Scholarship Fund. The Roadrunner Scholarship Fund supports student-athletes. The justice center will use the funds to tell stories through programs and documentaries about social justice issues such as profiles of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals students.

“When I was at the camp, we had that library and that was my only access to stories,” Perez-Andreesen said. “I think of those kids there now, and this is a way for them to see stories about people like them.

“Hopefully that will motivate them to go to college or leave that labor camp. Because a lot of them stay there, they end up working in the fields and they stay there.”

Embracing motherhood

Perez-Andreesen met Joel Andreesen, a senior partner in the Bakersfield law firm Rodriguez & Associates, in late 2015 and he proposed exactly one year later by placing an engagement ring among a bouquet of roses. They married April 1, 2017.

Their similar backgrounds and values connected them immediately, Joel Andreesen said.

She grew up the daughter of farmworkers, he was raised on an Iowa farm. Both were self-directed to college. And they both prioritize giving back to the community, he said. Andreesen’s firm specializes in representing plaintiffs in personal injury/wrongful death cases in which people have been hurt or killed, and they take cases on a contingency basis.

Joel Andreesen and Connie Perez-Andreesen in 2018.

The Andreesens at their wedding April 1, 2017.

When they met, Andreesen said, Connie wasn’t sure she could still have children. “Lo and behold,” he said, she became pregnant with their daughter, Valentina, four years ago “and at that point she shifted into total mother-type mentality.”

“They have such a great connection,” Andreesen said. “She tries to teach her lessons about life every day, to instill in her the values she and I have.”

That includes taking Valentina to work and UFW events, making her pack up toys and clothes for farmworker children twice a year, and putting parameters around what new things she can bring home, both Andreesens said.

“Just trying to instill in them early on that things don’t just get handed to you, that you have to work hard at what you do and good things will come about,” Joel Andreesen said.

By “them” he also means Jilian, Andreesen’s daughter by his wife Angela who died when Jilian was 10 years old. She’s a senior at Bakersfield Christian High School.

Perez-Andreesen likes to take Valentina to UFW events to show her what hard work looks like.

Perez-Andreesen takes Valentina to the polls

The Andreesens in 2019 (l to r): Connie, Valentina, Joel and Jilian. — The Andreesens (l to r): Connie, Valentina, Joel and Jilian.

Connie has encouraged Jilian to follow her own career dreams, which are to go into the fashion business, and put in full effort to achieve them, Joel said. Jilian was a near-4.0 student when Connie persuaded her to put in just a little more work, and now she maintains above a 4.5 GPA at Bakersfield Christian High School, he said.

Joel had encouraged Connie to take the job at the UFW despite it not paying what she was used to because it was such a good fit and she needed a change, he said. It has worked out beautifully.

“‘I was part of this movement through my parents. I understand what these people do, and so I’m going to try and make the organization the best that I can,’” Joel recalled her saying at the time.

“(Now) I see her doing that every day.”

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Footnotes

Story by Christine Bedell, senior alumni engagement specialist

FootNotes

Story by Christine Bedell, senior alumni engagement specialist

© 2026 California State University, Bakersfield

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