Joe Rivera

My name is Joe Rivera. I was born in downtown New York City across the street from the Brooklyn Bridge. My parents came from Puerto Rico in the 1940’s. My dad worked for the NYC Dept. of Sanitation and my mom was a lunch lady for the NYC school system. We moved to the Bronx when I was about 12 years old.

My parents were big on education. My sister graduated from Fordham University and I graduated from Long Island University. I worked in the financial industry until June 2001, when I moved to Collier County. I coached baseball and taught math and economics for three years at Immokalee High School. My sister served as principal of Immokalee Middle School.

After my brief teaching career, I bought a lawn business, a cleaning business, and Golden Gate Traffic School, which I currently operate today.

Like you, my family is very important to me. I had the pleasure of coaching my son’s baseball team at Palmetto Ridge High School during his senior year in 2013. My daughter is a freshman at USF. This year I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage to my beautiful wife and we recently found out we are going to be grandparents for the first time, so things are good.

It is my goal to expand the Golden Gate Civic Association membership and I believe by doing so, it will hopefully bring the community closer to share our goals and visions for the future.

I hope to see you at a future meeting!

Sincerely
Joe Rivera