This is the story of a kid who picked onions for 12-14 hours a day and went on to found a company that would generate over $100 million in annual revenue!
TRANSCRIPT:
Alex Cortes:
Aron Marquez was born in the Border Town of Chihuahua, Mexico.
Aron Marquez:
My mom and dad are rather young. They just turned 55 and 56. And I just turned 38 a couple of weeks ago. They got married pretty young when they were 14 and 15. I can't even imagine what being married at that age what that will be like. My dad worked in the United States most of my childhood. And mom had two jobs. She'll work in a local factory sewing Levi's. Mom worked there in the morning and she'll come and pick us up from school and feed us, and then went back to work and worked a double shift. And she did that for as long as I can remember. And my grandmother would come and babysit us until mom got back from work. And that's what she did every day.
Growing up, my mom was such an incredible figure for us. And it was very motivating to me to see my mom work two jobs and have four kids. I mean, it was very difficult. And I would always tell her, I'd say, "Mom, when I grow up, you're not going to have to work, mom. You're not going to have to work. I promise you that." And my mom would always just grab my cheek and she like, "I know you will." “But there's nothing wrong with working hard," is what she would always tell me. "There's nothing wrong with working hard."
Whenever you see your parents do that, the stuff that they sacrifice, it makes you appreciate the little things in life that shaped the way you look at things. So I always had that in the back of my mind that how hard my mom worked. And my dad would work all over the United States doing construction in the oil field. And so I never got a chance to really see him. He really wasn't that involved during my childhood. He will come in once a month, once every couple months and then go back to the United States.
One thing that I see is you show what was shown to you. And my dad, my grandparents from my dad's side of the family, they were really not that loving and caring and there for them either. My dad comes from a large family. What he showed me was what he knew. So I don't hold that whatsoever against him. I do think about it a lot, especially now that I see him with my nieces and nephews and they go to all the soccer games, and all the basketball games and volleyball games. Mom, and dad are involved with every aspect of my nieces and nephews.
I always telling mom and dad jokingly, "Hey, when I played sports growing up, you never came to any of my games, not one." I said, “I was good. I was the All Star and you never came to any of my games." Well, we only had a one car, which dad took to work. Mom didn't have a car. I always had to get carpooled wherever we went, because we didn't have a car.
So I wish he would have. I wish he would have been involved in more, but we all had a conversation as a family and they decided to move to the United States. It was never explained to me as a level of opportunity. It was more of us being together because dad missed out on so much. And when I was in the second or third grade, that's when all the conversations began.
And honestly, that's something that I didn't want. We never traveled anywhere. We never went to camp. We never did anything. We literally just were at the school. Summertime was no different because mom worked every day and dad was in the United States working. So I didn't know any better. But what I knew is that I was comfortable where we were. This was, of course, before Facebook, Instagram, social media, which really opened up how big the world is.
Back then, I didn't know anything. I know I went to school. We played soccer. We played basketball, baseball. And then for lunch, there was no lunch. I mean, there was no cafeteria. There was no nothing. If you had money, you ate. And if you didn't, you played soccer. And sometimes I played soccer more than I ate. So I had a routine that I was comfortable with and I didn't want to move.
The only thing that I did not like is mom having multiple jobs. Back then, that resonated with me. So whenever dad and mom were talking about moving to the US and things like that, I asked mom, "So you're going to have to have two jobs? Are you going to have to have two jobs, mom?" And she's like, "No, no. I'm not going to be able to work, only part-time because our visas."
And so at that point I'm like, "Okay, if mom doesn't have to work two jobs, I don't care where it is. We'll adjust to it." Dad applied for a residency for the whole family. Even before that, they had applied several years back and the whole immigration process, I mean, like the way it is now, it's not very efficient.
So it took a while for us to even get some type of correspondence back from the immigration saying that we reviewed your application and everything. So we were finally able to get a temporary visa to come to the US. We moved to the US when I was 11. So you can imagine how, at that age, trying to adjust, not speaking English. We didn't have a home. My dad was making enough money to keep everything going and my mom as well. But we didn't have much money to really do anything.
So we moved in with my aunt and uncle. It was six of us. And we were sharing basically a room and a half in this house. We came in into Odessa, Texas. We were there two days and we left to Coyanosa, which is a town that everyone picks onions and that's how they get paid. They pick you up at three o'clock in the morning, and they would charge us to pick us up and bring us back. And you worked there until about 7:00 PM at night. And you do it every day. It doesn't matter whether it's Monday, Sunday, you do that every day.
Alex Cortes:
Did Aron do anything fun in the summer?
Aron Marquez:
No, zero. We work 12, 14 hours. And you're exhausted because the heat is so bad. I mean, it's 110, 112 degrees constant on your back. So my dad was able to find one of those pop-up trailers, the small ones. That's where we lived in the summer. My mom and dad and my brother that's we worked out of. And my aunt and uncle to take care of my sisters during the week, and we'll go in there in and out. But we worked all summer picking unions. As an 11-year-old, I had different ideas of what I would be doing with my time.
But we needed to do that in order for us to save money to buy a house. Every time that we would do that, I would think of my mom leaving the house early and then coming and feeding us and going back to work. And that motivated me more. I'm like, "Okay, mom did this. I'm going to do it. And I'm going to be good at it."
Growing up, I wanted so many different things. Mostly materialistic things like an average 10, 11-year-old will want. And I remember wanting this bike and I would tell mom, "Hey, mom, I worked all summer. Can I get a bike?" And she would say, "Well, we can't because we're saving money to buy a house." And I said, "Mom, I worked all summer. Can I get a bike?" And she's like, "No, we can't. We'll get you one whenever we can."
And I understood. But she would always tell me, "You're going to realize that how much your family and being healthy is the most important thing in life. Materialistic things are going to go away. Love from your family and health is the most important thing that you'll ever see. At least we have our health, and you have a great family that loves you. That's the most important thing.”
And I would always tell mom, "I don't want health, mom. I want a bike." And she was like, "No, you’ll understand that having health and your family is all you need. Let's focus on the big things and let's get a house, and then we'll slowly work on everything. We'll get you a bike." So I was like, "Okay." So we picked onions all summer. The back of my neck was peeling so bad. It was terrible because it gets so hot in the summer, 110 degrees.
I can't eat onions. I can't even look at onions now. So you can imagine just because of the smell. And I'm pretty fair skin, so I would peal so bad. And I remember just telling mom and dad, I said, "I don't want to do this again, but I'm going to work hard that we don't have to do this."
We left on a Saturday and school started on Monday. And they gave us $100 to go buy some back school clothes, which I thought it was great. And I remember seeing the first pair of Polo boots. And I was like, "Oh man." He's like, "I want those." And I asked how much they were. They were like $140 something. I was like, "Geez, I got a hundred bucks. I can't even get close to that." But I was like, "I'm going to work hard to get those." I knew exactly what I wanted. I want to go look at them I say maybe they're on sale or something. I wanted those boots.
So we go get dropped off at the mall in Odessa. My brother goes one way, and I go another way. And my brother goes and he buys all these clothes from JCPenney's and Bell's, and these old stores that are no longer really in business or irrelevant. But he had all this stuff that he bought. And I go to Dillard's and I want to put boots on layaway. It’s the first time I ever heard of the term layaway. But yeah, if you give me $100, you still have $45 to go and you have 60 days to get them out of there.
So I went back and met my brother at the food court and my brother asked me, "Hey, where's your stuff?" I said, my brother's name's Freddy. I said, "Freddy, I actually put the boots on layaway. I'm going to come get them out." You bought all this stuff with the $100?" Like, "Yeah, and I have enough money for us to go get some food. Oh man, my mom and dad are going to really going to be upset with you."
And we walked over to the food court and my brother had money to buy me a hot dog or something. I don't know what it was. That's why I walked out of the store with nothing. And my brother had all these clothes to go back to school and I didn't. And I got in trouble when I got picked up. "You can't be thinking like that. You can't be thinking like that. Things like that are not going to happen overnight. You got to grow into things like that."
They were very disappointed in me for doing that. And looking back, I would do it the same way because I didn't want to settle. I didn't want to settle for, "This is what you can do now." I want to be motivated. And I tell all of our team in different businesses that I'm involved in. I say, "Hey, you can accomplish a whole lot more than what's in front of you. People are going to tell you what you can do and can't do." I said, "No one knows you more than you. And no one can stop you other than you. Just focus on what you're doing."
So in my mind, I had that and I always go back to that, that, "No, I'm going to do that. I'm going to come back and figure out how I'm going to make another $45." Because I know I couldn't ask my parents for it on how to get this. And that's when I really started looking at different options of how I can make money.
I saw a lawnmower that was for sale. My brother's really good. Even today, he's incredible. He can fix anything. He can build anything. He's an incredible person. But I bought a cheap lawnmower that he gave me money for. And he fixed it for me. And I started mowing yards around the neighborhood asking people. And it was difficult at first because I did not speak English.
So I would knock on the door. And if somebody that didn't speak Spanish answered the door, I just pointed out my lawnmower and said $10. Some of the people were so nice. Those like, "Okay." And then when I'll go charge, they'll come in and point at me where all the different spots that I left that didn't look good. So I had to go back and mow, re-mow some of the yards and everything. But they were all very, very kind. But I quickly realized that I wasn't very good at it.
Alex Cortes:
I used to cut grass myself and challenged Aaron, how can someone not be good at cutting grass? I mean, come on. It's not that hard.
Aron Marquez:
I didn't want to be good at it. That was the point. I was like, "I don't want to be good at it because then I'm going to like it." No, honestly, I was trying to be quick and I would always just leave strips of grass everywhere. I'm going to blame it more on the lawn more than me. My lawnmower was not very good and I didn't have a bag on it. So the grass that I mowed just ended up right where I cut.
So that didn't give me the right visibility of realizing if I miss a spot because there's grass going everywhere. That's my excuse, man. I'm sticking to it. That's when I really approached my brother and some of his friends about, "Hey, I'm going to go walk around the neighborhood and ask people to mow their yard and then I'm going to pay you $5. If you mow, you keep $5 and I keep $5. If it's a big yard, we get $15. I get $8. You get $7.”
Alex Cortes:
How about those splits? Might not seem so fair giving that the guy's cutting are doing most of the wor?
Aron Marquez:
But they hated asking people. And if I don't ask, there's nothing to cut. So that's the way I looked at it. And it worked out well for them because I would line up 10, 12 yards on a weekend and they will come in and make good money. And I made good money. And I did that for a couple of summers and I was able to get my Polo boots out in a couple of weeks.
I was very pleased with what I did. I was like, "Okay, I've figured out what needed to be done to do this." It was very humbling trying to look back and see what I can do to make money, especially with the language barriers. I remember going to school on the first day and we were in Odessa in South Odessa. And we had to go to school in the north side of Odessa because that was the only school that had ESL, English As A Second Language.
So we would ride the bus. The bus would pick us up at 5:30 in the morning and class would start at 8:45. And we would literally just get there to make the class on time because the bus had to make so many stops. And I was like, "Geez, where am I?" I remember they'd taken me to class for the first time. And everybody in there only spoke Spanish. The teacher spoke Spanish. The books that I received were written in Spanish. We were segregated in our own group. We didn't go to PE with the rest of the school. Our lunchtime was different.
I mean, it was very isolated and very ... I hate to use the word, but it was very segregated. I guess we were not involved with other regular activities. And I didn't like that. And so I told the teacher, I said, "Hey, I want to be in the regular class. One, because I want to play soccer. And two, I speak Spanish, I read Spanish, I want to learn to speak English. I want to do everything in English. No offense, but I'm not going to learn how to speak English when you're teaching me everything in Spanish, and everything that I'm reading is in Spanish. So this is not going to work for me.”
And she told me, I remember vividly she said, "This is your first day. This is your first day so I don't know how you're drawing those conclusions. And this is not for you to decide. It's for your parents to decide." And I just politely asked. I said, "Well, how different is this going to be tomorrow and the next day?"
I got back to the house around 7:00. The bus travel was brutal because we changed buses three different times to go from north side of Odessa, to the south side of Odessa. And I told mom, I said, "Mom, I can't do this. I'm not going to learn to speak English in this ESL class." I said, "You need to put me in the regular classes. That's what I prefer and that's what I want." Mom's like, "If that's what you want, that's what we'll do." And mom went over there and said, "Put him in regular classes." And that's when life began for me in school and education and meeting new friends.
That's where I wanted to be because I was part of the group and I never want to be isolated. And I never wanted to be looked upon like inferior to anyone. Just throw me in the middle of the group. And if I fit in, great. If I don't, I don't. But I don't want to get any special type of privileges or any type of anything. I don't want that. I want to be judged based on me, my merit, my character, my abilities. That's what I want. I don't want to be isolated as an ESL group or this.
I remember going to class for the first time and really not knowing much at all, even how to say my name. And I loved it. I loved it. I was never embarrassed of not speaking English. I would tell all my cousins, all my friends and everyone, "Hey, talk to me only in English. I don't want you to talk to me in Spanish. Talk to me only in English." That's what I would tell them. And that's why I was able to learn to speak English quickly compared to anyone else because everyone was speaking to me in English. And that's the way you have to do it.
I often tell people you're not going to grow from being in your comfort zone. When you go out of the comfort zone, you're going to grow. That's when the growth begins.
Of course, at that age, there's kids that they'll make fun of you for not speaking English, or not wearing main brand clothing, or things like that. I remember being picked on for … I was reading out of a book. It was my turn to read it in class. And I pronounced the word Iceland instead of island. Everyone started laughing. And then one of the kids next to me we went to break, he's like Iceland. He kept calling me Iceland. And he was laughing at me for not speaking English. And I was like, I told him, I said, "Man, you're laughing at me because I can't speak English, but I'm learning to speak two languages."
I said, "I speak Spanish and I'm learning to speak English." I said, "I'm going to learn to speak English in the next three or four months." I said, "And you'll still only be able to speak one." I said, "Imagine if you try to read Spanish. Imagine if you try to speak Spanish." I said, "So I don't understand. I think that the joke's on you, that you're making fun of me for trying to learn to speak to two languages when you can only speak one. I'm not going to make fun of you for that."
And that changed everything. He never said anything again and no one else did, and no one laughed. I remember no one laughed. Everyone just processed that. They're like, "That's so true." And I think he felt bad with my answer. But with that answer, it was just literally what rolled out of the tip of my tongue. I felt like if I, and I still believe that, if you let other people get under your skin or take you away from your focus, they're winning.
So I always took a lot of the things like that as lessons in life. You're never going to get criticized for people that are doing more than you are. A lot of times the criticism comes from people who do less. And then my aunt and uncles, they will use me in the summertime to go interview with them. I remember my uncle had a job interview and he came and picked me up. He said, "Hey, I want you to go to this interview with me because I don't speak English." And I was like, "Okay."
So he picked me up and we went over there and he just tapped me on the shoulder and like, "Okay, this is my uncle. He has an interview today at 9:30 or ten o'clock or whatever." And he's like, "Okay. And who are you?" I said, "I'm his nephew." And he's like, "Okay, does your uncle speak English?" I'm like, "No, ma'am." And my English was not very good back then either. And I went in there at the job interview with him and they were asking him ... He was an insulator, insulating pipe and everything. And he goes, "Tell him that I've been doing this for 10 years. And tell them that I can do this and this." And there are some words that I didn't know how to translate.
I didn't really have anyone that was really successful in the immediate family that I knew at all. Everyone worked and did what they could to provide for their family, but no one ever mentioned college. No one ever mentioned starting their own business. No one mentioned anything. It was just, you're here. You work. And you provide for your family. And that's what you're used to.
Seeing that, I didn't want that. I wanted something completely different. I wanted more than that. And it made me work harder to be able to execute being an entrepreneur, being out on my own because I didn't want to work for anyone else. So while graduation in high school was more near, I started really panicking about, "Hey, what am I going to do?" In high school, I wasn't that good of a student.
I was voted best dressed, most handsome, nothing to do with accomplishment. They had a joke on our yearbook about most likely not to succeed. And that was me in our class because I was a class clown. Anyway, it was interesting seeing all that. But whenever I graduated high school, I started working for a refinery, Huntsman polymers. And then going to school at night at Odessa College. So I will leave at eight o'clock or six o'clock in the morning, come back at 6:45, and then class would start at 7:30 and finish at 10:30, Monday through Thursday.
So I wanted to do that just so I can at least save some money and then look at a four-year school. Did that for a year, working in the plant as labor. Cleaning tanks and being inside of tanks. A very, very dirty type job. It was a labor job. But within six months, I worked for a company called Je Merit. They're at the Huntsman refinery. And I got promoted as a leadman. And I was making $18, $19 an hour as an 18-year-old. At that point was more than my dad was making.
I had my group of eight men that I lead. And they'll assign us different projects cleaning tanks, cleaning ... Just the dirtiest jobs that he could. But at that point, I was no longer doing it physically. I was just leading my team as a leadman. It was great. Every job that they'd give us, they’d give us a job order and say, "Aaron, here's your job order for your team. And you get five hours to finish it. And then here's another one, you get four hours to finish it." I focused on doing it faster, safer, cleaner than any of the other leadman.
I always to find a way that would, that we can do things that show that, "Hey, I'm going above and beyond what's expected." And we finished some of those jobs that were supposed to take a week, we'll finish it in a day and a half. And people started taking notice of that. And within a year, I got promoted again. And what was great is that the people where I was getting promoted, they were very receptive. They're like, "Hey, you want more out of life than this."
And I was a young kid and leading these guys who've been there awhile. And I earned their respect because I always worked hard and smart. But I was doing that also going through school, going to school at night. And they'll see me at lunch when everybody will eat lunch and talk and play dominoes in the break room. I will be in there with my book wide open doing homework, because that's the only time that I had. So they would see that. I mean, I was taking 18 hours of school. So it was difficult to do that, but nothing worth having is easy. And it was important for me to get a degree.
Alex Cortes:
And this Mexican immigrant, who'd been in West Texas, put himself in a whole other type of environment, Connecticut, to get a degree from, UConn. And Aron then worked at the energy company Nabors, getting promoted six times in the next five years.
Aron Marquez:
I received a $22,000, $23,000 bonus my first year. And what I did was I paid for everyone in my family to become American citizens. I never seen that much money made out to my name on one check. I was like, "Wow, this is amazing that you can get this much money." There's nothing that I wanted more than have the security of my mom and dad and my brothers and sisters to be American citizens.
I think the United States of America is the greatest country in the world because it's the only country that as an immigrant, you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to. It's a blessing to be an American citizen. And I held that paramount among anything else. That's probably the best gift that I could have given my parents, everyone in my family. And to date, that's something that I'm the most proud of is being able to make sure that my parents and everyone in my family, all of us are American citizens.
Alex Cortes:
And I asked Aaron what his naturalization ceremony was like:
Aron Marquez:
To me, whenever you hear the Star-Spangled Banner or Amazing Grace, those two songs, no matter what, where I am, what I'm doing, if I hear those two songs, I just automatically want to cry. The flag means so much to me and as an American and everything. So for the first time hearing that in the ceremony and playing that and among the groups of so many different people from different backgrounds, it's … I remember just looking around and everyone in our family we just had tears coming down their eye because we felt that "Man, we're American citizens. How cool is that?"
So it was one of those days that we'll never forget because it changed our lives. And it's changed the generations of our families going forward to be American citizens. And it just motivated me so much to go back to work after that and accomplish more.
So as I was going through Nabors, I was living good. I was making incredible money for what I'm used to. And I get a call from my mom. This was 2007. I get a call from my mom. She was crying and that's never good. And there's no worse phone calls than when somebody calls you and they're not able to speak on the other line, especially when the other person on the other line is your mom. My mom's everything to me.
And she was telling me ... She couldn't speak. She's crying. And then now I'm crying too asking mom what's wrong. And she told me that dad was diagnosed with cancer, with colon cancer. And I was like, "Oh my God." I remember getting in my car and driving over to Odessa because they were going to operate the next day. And as soon as she told me that, the first thing that came to mind was her telling me growing up that you're going to realize that materialistic things are not going to matter, or things that you want are not going to matter. What you're always going to value the most is your family and your health.
Because at that point, I will be willing to give up every single thing that I had at that point, everything, and start all over if my dad was to be healthy. But I hated that it took something like that to happen in order for me to realize that. I mean, looking back and even talking about it, it's difficult. But that's why now every time that mom says something, I don't wait for it to happen to me before I really take things to heart. I just remember that I'll think, "Man, I'm willing to give away the little bit that I have. I'll give all away if I can just have my dad healthy again." Luckily, everything went great. And my dad's in incredible health now. But it was one of those episodes in life that I'll never forget.
Alex Cortes:
And his dad even went on to work with him on Aron's dream of being an entrepreneur. At the time of our interview, Aaron's company, Wildcat Oil Tools, was only eight years old and yet had over $100 million in annual revenue.
Aron Marquez:
Building different businesses and above all building great relationships and growing as a person. Being able to do projects in South America, in the Middle East, in Kuwait, Colombia, all over, it's been a blessing to do that. Every time you travel to different parts of the world, which are incredible, the beauty of each country, it's beautiful in its own way. But there's nothing better whenever you've land back in the United States of America.
I wish people didn't take that for granted sometimes how great this country is. Sometimes we get so caught up on what we're dealing with today and we'll focus on tomorrow, and we lose sight of how blessed we are to be living the way we live and doing the things that we're doing and seeing the things that we see. And I said, I attribute a lot of that to my mom and dad. Just the work ethic that they had, and the appreciation of the little bit that we have. And really putting what's most important, which is family, friends, faith. That's the most important.
It's so hard for me to not get choked up about mom because she's, to me, the most incredible person in the world. So everything that I do and everything that I strive to be is for my mom. I want to make her proud. And she's very proud of me. I did a small podcast with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago and she called me and she was just crying about it. Or she sees me on social media through our tequila brand and something else, or being on the board of a hospital. It makes her proud.
And it's humbling to me because I'm doing all these things for her, for my family. Going back to them getting married at such a young age, I feel like we're going to have a longer life together because they became grandparents so young with my brother and my other sisters. It's great to be able to go to dinner and travel and do things with them. They're young. I mean, they're younger than most people are who have a 40-year-old son and 11 grandkids.
Lee Habeeb:
And what a voice, what a story. Great job has always to Alex. And if ever there was a quintessential American dream story on this show, oh my goodness, this was it, Aron Marquez's story. He’s 19 years old. He's a leadman and it’s allowing him to make $18 an hour as he put it, "More than my dad was making." And then given a job order while he had one idea only, do it better, do it cleaner, do it safer, and do it faster.
"Nothing worth having is easy," he said. And it's true. He went onto UConn, of all places. Got his degree. Worked in the energy field, gets a $22,000 bonus. And what does he do with it? He makes sure his family members become American citizens. He says, "To date, it's the thing I'm most proud of." And my goodness, he said, "When I hear the Star-Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace, both of those songs, I want to cry, and so many of us in this country do. The flag means so much to me. And my goodness, this country changed our lives. This country changed the trajectory of my family."
He gets that call in 2007 where he learns that everything his mom told him about life was true, that he would do anything and give away anything for the health of his dad. And now, running a business, Wildcat Oil Tools, a hundred million annually in revenue. And my goodness, as he said, "I'm building a business. I'm building relationships. I'm growing as a person." What a story. Aron Marquez's story. He lives in Midland, Texas, a patch of America that everyone should get to know, a beautiful part of this great country. Aron Marquez's story here on Our American Stories.