Community Panel
Hector Cervantes
Hector Cervantes is a passionate lifelong member of the Calipatria community on the frontline of the Salton Sea and potential Lithium Valley Development. Hector graduated from Calipatria high in 1992 and has lived a life of public service to his community as an IID Energy Department member for 20 years, City of Calipatria Fire Department for 10 years, Calipatria City Council member, Southern California Association of Governments member, Imperial County Transportation member, volunteer on various community and no-profit organization in the Northend and current member of the Calipatria Foundation, AB617 Northern Corridor Steering Committee working on air quality issues, California Jobs First Initiative Southern Border Coalition Imperial Valley Economic Development Sector, Imperial Trucking LLC project Manager and active community member.
Amato Evan
Dr. Amato Evan is a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, where he studies dust storms. His recent work focuses on the causes, impacts, and future of dust storms in the state of California. He also leads UC Dust, a multi-disciplinary team of scientists from six UCs focused on developing strategies to address the adverse effects of dust storms in California.
Larry Cox
Lawrence Cox is an Imperial Valley native born and raised in Brawley. Upon graduating from Brawley Union High School in 1976, he attended Cal Poly SLO in 1980. He graduated with a degree in Crop Science and returned to the Imperial Valley to join his family’s farming business. He married Tina
Salisbury in 1981 and they had two sons, Thomas and Travis. Larry began his own farming operation, Lawrence Cox Ranches, in 1984 and later expanded his farming operation to Mexico in 1991. In
addition, him and three partners started Coastline Family Farms in Salinas at that time. Cox’s operations currently include approximately 4,500 acres of diversified crops in Imperial Valley, 2,000 acres in
Mexicali Valley and about 3,200 acres of leafy greens custom grown for their Salinas based operation now owned by him and his wife.
Cox has served as an Imperial County Farm Bureau board member since 2004, including serving as president for two years, and is currently the chairman of the ICFB water committee. In addition to his role with Imperial County Farm Bureau, he has served on the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers
Association for twenty plus years including two terms as president. Cox’s involvement in additional
agricultural organizations include the California Fresh Market Tomato Board, California Cotton Growers Board, Western Growers Association Board Member and Past Board Chairman, and IID Water Conservation Advisory Board. Cox prefaces all of his accomplishments on his beliefs as a Christian and attests that all material things he may have stewardship of are just temporary gifts and belong to Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior.
Isabel Solis
Isabel Solis is a lifelong advocate for equity, education, and environmental justice in California’s Imperial Valley. An immigrant from Mexico and proud first-generation university graduate, Isabel has dedicated 31 years to public education, including the past 23 years serving in the Brawley Elementary School District.
Isabel holds an A.S. in Social Science from Imperial Valley College and a B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration from San Diego State University – Imperial Valley Campus. She also holds a K-12 Multiple Subject Teaching Credential with a Bilingual Cross-cultural Language and Academic Development (BCLAD) certification in Spanish and holds an Assistive Technology Specialist certification.
Beyond the classroom, Isabel is actively involved in several social and environmental justice coalitions working to uplift vulnerable communities—immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and low-income populations—through grassroots organizing, education, and cross-border collaboration. Her leadership and passion continue to make a lasting impact on the binational communities she serves in her role as IVC Board of Trustee Area 4 and President of Los Amigos de la Comunidad, Inc.
Moderator: Eric Reyes
Los Amigos de la Comunidad, Inc Executive Director and Project Lead organizer Eric Montoya Reyes is an experienced (35 years) community organizer and advocate for the underserved communities of the Imperial Valley in different capacities through his adult life. His vast experience includes being culturally and linguistically competent and relevant that has seen him lead different organizations and movements within the Imperial County on issues impacting the community; including environmental and socioeconomic issues with an emphasis of representing the underserved communities; who are busy surviving and not engaged in every day opportunities to have their voices heard. This commitment to the underserved came from his upbringing in a migrant family that were proud “Fruit Tramps” that traveled to Central California from the Imperial Valley every summer as a family unit and he saw and experienced the many injustices socioeconomically and environmentally he also experienced in the Imperial Valley that spurred his activism.participant in local and state initiatives with elected officials and agencies on environmental and human health issues in the region.
Eric has been an active participant, advocate and activist for Salton Sea and its current status of unknown consequences in continued water transfers, climate change and the receding shoreline that is impacting our region disproportionally. Eric has participated in a multitude of Salton Sea and environmental community meetings, seminars and agency discussions and was invited, and accepted, to be on the Imperial County Environmental Justice Advisory Board of the Imperial County on the Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) and Land Use Plan for the Lithium Valley Development impacting the Sea. Eric is currently a member of the Imperial County Air Pollution Control District (ICAPCD) Appeals Panel; reviewing and voting on ICAPCD cases and violations as well as a member of the AB617 North End Corridor Commission creating programs and investment in air quality mitigation and an active
