This is the fourth in a series of stories about our four new CSUB Alumni Association board members.
Amanda Ruiz isn’t kidding when she says on her resume that she “assumes difficult assignments.”
Over the last year she’s been at the forefront of Kern County government efforts to address two huge community concerns: homelessness in Bakersfield and the distribution of COVID-19 relief funds.
Ruiz, 33, is a senior fiscal and policy analyst in the Kern County Administrative Office, where she prepares budgets and provides policy analysis for the Kern County Board of Supervisors.
Lately she’s been busy managing the construction, operation and funding of Kern County’s first homeless navigation center and managing contract compliance and reporting for millions of dollars in housing- and homeless-related pandemic aid.
The M Street Navigation Center, owned by the county and operated by Community Action Partnership of Kern since last year, grew out of significant public outcry and concern over homelessness in Bakersfield. It offers shelter (for both humans and pets), meals, laundry services, medical assessment and more.
“At the time, Mike Maggard said, ‘We need to do this now,’” Ruiz said, referring to the county supervisor and fellow CSUB alum, “and I hit the ground running.”
And when the pandemic hit, Ruiz was charged with managing housing-related COVID relief funds addressing such things as homelessness, rental assistance and helping with establishment of isolation trailers at the Kern County Fairgrounds.
Ruiz grew up in Bakersfield and graduated from Liberty High before coming to CSUB. She was active in the Gamma Phi Beta sorority and earned a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in political science in 2009.
Ruiz intended to go into teaching, but at the time teachers were getting pink slips, not jobs. She also had a daughter to support. She worked as a teller at what was then Kern Schools Federal Credit Union and looked for opportunities to join the county.
She found that opportunity at the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, where as a program specialist she sought out rehabilitation programs for inmates in custody and following their release. After a year there, in 2015, she moved over to the county administrative office.
She assumed responsibility for overseeing large, complex departmental budgets including the $220 million Behavioral Health one, implementing the Lean Six Sigma process improvement program and providing analyses for department head recruitment, internship program and redistricting.
She also grew her family. Ruiz and her husband, Daniel, have two children, Ava, 11, and Cristian, 7.
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