Dec 22, 2009
Patricia Loya is the Executive Director of La Cocina, a
San Francisco Incubator Kitchen for Women. The mission of La
Cocina is to cultivate food entrepreneurs as they formalize and
grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen
space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market
opportunities. They focus primarily on women from culturally
diverse and immigrant communities.
Patricia earned her undergraduate degree from the University of
California at Irvine and went on to earn a Masters of Education
degree from Harvard University. In 2001, Patricia was a
fellow with the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders through the
Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. In 2003,
she participated in the Hispanics in Philanthropy Leadership
Institute at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern
University.
Upon receiving her undergraduate degree, Patricia joined La Raza
Centro Legal in San Francisco. She later co-founded Ujima
Unidos, a Saturday school for African American and Latino youth in
Oakland, California. She then went on to become the Executive
Director of Centro Legal de la Raza where she worked closely with
immigrant and low-income communities, assisted day laborers in
forming their own worker association, and launched the flagship
project, The Youth Law Academy. She became the Executive Director
of La Cocina in 2009.
A transcript of this interview is available on my blog
Have Fun Do Good.