While junior Julian Ocampo credits his skills in management and accounting to his experience working at Los Ocampo, his family’s restaurant chain, he also believes the business program at St. Thomas has been highly influential.

In the late 1990s, Ocampo’s parents migrated to St. Paul from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, a small town two hours south of Mexico City.

“Both my parents started working in restaurants while my sister and I went to school,” Ocampo said. “I remember that they would make really good food every once in a while, and that’s where their idea of starting a restaurant came from.”

The first Los Ocampo, which opened in Minneapolis in June 2003, was initially named Taqueria Los Ocampo; “taqueria” loosely translates to “taco shop” or “taco place.”

In previous years, Ocampo worked on the cooking and cleaning crew and as a cashier. He now works as a manager, dealing with accounting, human resources, payroll and customer service.

To learn how to manage the locations more efficiently, Ocampo is taking business classes at St. Thomas. He said his classes are helping him achieve his goal of opening locations in other states.

“I’m glad that I took both financial accounting and managerial accounting at (St. Thomas) before and during my time learning at my job,” Ocampo said. “Now, accounting for my job is much easier, and managing something that you love or are really familiar with is easy and fun.”

“There have been a lot of St. Thomas teachers who have helped along the way,” Ocampo said. “But the most recent and most influential one was my managerial accounting professor, Mr. Gallagher.”

Robert Gallagher said Ocampo is a curious student who is applying skills in managerial accounting outside of the classroom.

“You have to ask questions to learn,” Gallagher said. “There’s a fear factor of asking questions in class, and if you don’t understand, chances are half the class doesn’t understand.”

Though his schedule is busy with work and classes, Ocampo said the key to balance is sacrifice.

“Let go of some things that are fun, and make room for things that are not as fun but get you ahead,” Ocampo said. “You have to be versatile and be able to handle a lot of stress.”

Carlee Hackl can be reached at hack9822@stthomas.edu.