Valentin Sierra '10
His home region has always been extremely important to Valentin Sierra. So too has been the concept of service.
But to serve at home the way he is doing now, Sierra first had to travel far and wide. And his time at Saint John’s University was an important stop on that journey.
“Saint John’s, to me, meant the whole world,” said the 2010 SJU graduate, who is now the secretary of economic planning and development for his home state of Caldas in his native Colombia.
“It changed my perspective on things. It enabled me to apply for the Master’s degree of my dreams (in public policy) at Harvard. It set me up with an internship in the city of my dreams in Washington D.C. But more than anything, Saint John’s meant grit and growth. It was a constant learning process. And it was such a supportive environment. It allowed me to discover and believe in what I was capable of doing.”
But Sierra’s voyage of self-discovery began well before he arrived in Collegeville. He grew up in Manizales, Colombia (the capital of the Department of Caldas) during a period when the country was racked by civil war.
Valentin Sierra '10 conducts an interview with Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia on the CSB/SJU campus.
A scholarship enabled him to come to the U.S. and attend St. Cloud (Minnesota) Cathedral High School as an exchange student. From there, a speech he delivered at an event at St. Mary’s Cathedral in downtown St. Cloud drew the attention of the late Vern Dahlheimer, who spent many years working on behalf of social justice causes in the St. Cloud area.
Dahlheimer – along with an anonymous donor – helped provide the financial support needed for Sierra to enroll at Saint John’s where he excelled, majoring in economics and political science, working for the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement, and earning acceptance to the Phi Beta Kappa national honors society – becoming the first international student at Saint John’s to receive such recognition.
A series of internships followed, as did a Master’s degree in international economics and finance from Johns Hopkins and the Master’s degree in public policy from Harvard.
With that résumé, he could have gone anywhere in the world and likely had his pick of jobs. But he chose to return to Caldas, where he helped elect longshot candidate Luis Carlos Velásquez Cardona governor in 2019.
He now serves as one of Cardona’s top aides, helping his home state meet the challenges in front of it – including the economic impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was able to get so many opportunities in the U.S.,” he said. “But I never entertained the idea of staying there. I always knew I was building the portfolio and tools I needed to come back and serve my region.
“The Benedictine values of service and caring for one another that were instilled in me at Saint John’s just reinforced my decision to come back to Colombia.”
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“The Benedictine values of service and caring for one another that were instilled in me at Saint John’s just reinforced my decision to come back to Colombia.”