By Sarah Kuta
Throughout her life, Rosalie Martinez has encountered many challenges and obstacles. But rather than get discouraged, she draws on a childhood memory of the “The Little Engine That Could.”
As a girl growing up in La Jara, she remembers reading the popular children’s book many times. To this day, she repeats the train’s mantra to herself whenever she faces adversity: “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.”
That phrase helped Martinez when she enrolled in college classes at Adams State for the first time, at age 40, while running a business and raising four children. It helped her when she began teaching Adams State business classes, without any teaching experience, and when she earned her MBA from Colorado State University.
And, it helped her when she became the first woman in the Adams State president’s cabinet as associate vice president of administration, a responsibility-laden role in which she managed campus construction projects and an array of departments ranging from IT to human resources.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, gee, you’ve been so lucky, look at all you’ve done,’” said Martinez, who delivered the winter commencement address at Adams State on Dec. 5. “But luck, I’ve always maintained, is when preparation and opportunity meet. Every time I had an opportunity, I seemed to have just enough luck to get in there and, boy, you have to work like crazy to get it done, but you do.”
Born and raised in La Jara, Martinez was the third of nine children in her family. Her father was a sheep rancher and her mother was a homemaker. As a child, she loved to read and she always excelled in school, two themes that continued throughout her life.
She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class and earned a four-year scholarship to Adams State, but could not afford to attend. Instead, she moved to Albuquerque and got a job doing office work at Sandia Corporation (now Sandia National Laboratories). She married her high school sweetheart, Leroy, who later joined her in Albuquerque.
The pair moved back to Colorado to try their hand at farming, but ultimately opened an auto body shop in Alamosa — her husband did the bodywork while Martinez did the bookkeeping.
Over time, however, she felt she needed to learn more about accounting, so she enrolled in a few classes at Adams State.
“Well, I got to Adams State and I just loved the learning and I just kept going and going and going,” she said.
While attending classes, she continued to keep the books for the shop and cared for the couple’s four children. She eventually earned her bachelor’s degree in 1986.
Not long after graduating, she got a job offer to teach business classes at Adams State, with the caveat that she needed to earn a master’s degree. While teaching, she enrolled in a hybrid remote MBA program offered through Colorado State University and administered by Adams State. She earned her MBA in management in 1992.
Soon, she found herself traveling down yet another career path when she became the Adams State associate vice president for administration. In her five years in that role, she managed facilities, technology, resource development and human resources, and she oversaw several campus design and construction projects, including a new science building and a new art building.
Looking back on her unconventional path, Martinez said she simply took things one day at a time and faced every new opportunity head-on.
“It happened so gradually and it seemed like it didn’t matter what the next challenge was, I always seemed to be able to get it done,” she said. “There were times when it got very, very busy, but for the most part it went smoothly.”
She retired from the University in 1999 to return full-time to running the many businesses she owns with her husband, including Sierra Vista Lumber & Steel Company, Rio Vega Ranch, Ace Hardware of Alamosa and L&M Auto Inc. and Auto Sales.
In addition to her educational and career accomplishments, Martinez has a long history of community involvement in the San Luis Valley. Over the years, she has served on boards for organizations including Boys and Girls Club of the San Luis Valley, San Luis Valley Health Foundation, San Luis Valley Health, Alamosa County Chamber of Commerce, Hope for Kids Like Me, Farm Credit of Southern Colorado, Trinidad State Junior College, Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame Honorary Board and the Adams State University Foundation.
Her passion for helping young people succeed is the thread that ties all of her community involvement together. She hopes to help young people have better health, better social skills, better education and better mentoring so that they may be successful in life, no matter their path.
“Very early, I realized that education is going to be the key to move people forward and, a lot of times, that doesn’t come very easily,” she said. “In my case, where, really under necessity, I waited until I was 40 to attend college … but look at what I could’ve done all those years if I could’ve gone to school earlier. How might that have been different? I don’t know. But I do think that education is really, really key.”
