BRCC Graduate Spotlight: Manny Ledesma

Withjust a couple months under his belt as a correspondence assistant in Senator Mark Warner’s ofce, Manny Ledesma is living his dream! Te path to working in the United States Senate has been a challenging, but purposeful one for the 2013 Turner Ashby High School graduate.

“Te truth is, I wasn’t a good student in high school. Blue Ridge is the only place that gave me a chance to learn and grow,” Manny explained. He added, “Tey gave me that chance more than once, and I am so grateful for it.”

At BRCC, Manny was enrolled in the transfer program. Knowing his plan was to transfer and major in Political Science at James Madison University, he took as many classes as he could related to that major.

“My time at BRCC helped prepare me to earn my undergraduate degree at JMU and my master’s degree in two ways,” said Manny. “Te frst, is that my courses at BRCC helped develop my critical thinking skills. Taking the time to do every assignment and trying to apply those lessons to things I saw around me proved invaluable. Second, my English classes at BRCC helped me reign in my scatered thoughts on a subject mater and create structed papers that were ofen complimented at every level.”

Afer successfully earning a bachelor’s degree in political science, Manny wanted to continue his studies of and grow his expertise in public policy, and enrolled in the Public Policy master’s degree program at George Mason University, focusing in National Security.

In his current position Manny assists Senator Warner in answering constituent mail from all over the Commonwealth. “Specifcally, I’m responsible for creating and maintaining database lists that capture and organize constituent information in a timely and accurate manner. It takes a lot of efort to comb through all the data, but it’s something I really enjoy doing!” he said.