Blog post by Jasmine Pridgen, U.S. Census Bureau

The U.S. Census Bureau is proud to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, which recognizes the rich histories, cultures, and contributions of Americans whose ancestors came from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Spain.

Luis Cano, a proud Mexican American, currently serves as the Census Bureau’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). As CIO, Cano focuses on providing secure and robust technology used by the Census Bureau’s many programs and surveys. He continues to lead efforts to transform the Office of the Chief Information Officer’s workforce to focus its technical resources to better answer questions about the nation’s people, places, and economy.  Previously, Cano served as chief of the Decennial Contracts Execution Office for the 2020 Census. 

A second generation Mexican American (his mother was from Mexico and his father was a Mexican American from Texas), Cano grew up in a large, hardworking family in southwestern Arizona. His parents owned a small Mexican restaurant in Somerton, Arizona, a heavily Mexican-populated area close to where the Arizona, Mexico, and California borders meet. He grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and Latinx community.

Cano says he developed a strong work ethic and learned about perseverance, grit, and humility from his father. He worked as a dishwasher in the family restaurant during the winter months and, beginning when he was 14 years old, Cano and his father would spend the summer months as migrants working in the cantaloupe packaging sheds of California. It was during this time that Cano learned about the importance of determination, with a good dose of humility, and how to survive just about anywhere.

“The money we made in the summer would help the family survive during the winter” Cano recalls. “The work was very hard and physical.”

“While working at the packing sheds during the summer, we lived outside under the stars in the parking lot of the packing shed. We would come together with other migrant workers with the same goals and create a community, like a little town. We would work long hours each day and eventually follow the work up north,” Cano adds. “My dad referred to our outdoor living arrangements as Hotel de Cuatro Vientos or ‘Hotel of the Four Winds’ and would always come up with creative ways to make our living arrangements more tolerable. My dad used to say, ‘I don’t have money to give you, but what I can do is teach you how to live anywhere, no matter what.’”

After graduating from high school, Cano served in the U.S. Navy where his master chief taught him about shipboard communications. The more he learned and moved up, the more Cano taught lower- ranking shipmates to find their own success, too.

When he completed his military service, Cano was hired as a civilian to work on ship-to-shore communications for the U.S. Navy. In this “extremely technical position,” Cano once again was paired with a “very patient” mentor who helped him become an expert in Navy communications software development, designing and writing code to interconnect ashore U.S. Navy units to ships at sea. He spent three years with his mentor, honing his systems programming skills by training and doing the work. He dedicated himself to solving complex issues with Navy communication stations worldwide, while maintaining an attitude of humility and continual learning. “I made all kinds of errors and my mentor helped me learn from them. He helped me develop the skills needed to move upward,” Cano says.

Cano says he feels “a strong connection to the people in the trenches doing the day-to-day work. I've been there, I understand. With the time I have left in the federal government, I want to focus on developing our workforce at all levels. It's more than training—it’s about mentoring, challenging our people and ourselves, and providing opportunities for all employees.” Cano has continued to embody the spirit of a mentor and facilitator during his many positions in the federal government.

After more than six years as a civilian communications programmer with the U.S. Navy, contractor and civil servant, Cano joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) in 1993. While there, Cano says he was “fortunate” to have had the opportunity to serve in many diverse technical and leadership positions. For the summer of 1996, the NWS provided weather support for the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. He was assigned to design and write a dataflow software system interconnecting many different types of NWS computers together in support of the 1996 Olympics. He also served as program manager of NOAA’s Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System providing supercomputers essential to supporting NOAA’s environmental prediction product generation. He also served as director of the Office of Dissemination, improving dissemination services in support of NWS’s mission of protecting life and property.

After nearly 24 years with NWS, Cano joined the Census Bureau’s Decennial Executive Leadership Team in 2017. In this role, he was responsible for over three billion dollars of contracts that supported the execution of the 2020 Census.

Cano holds a master’s degree in technology management, a Chief Information Officer Executive Certificate, and a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science from the University of Maryland Global Campus. Cano is also a certified project management professional and certified Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers -Level III. 

Both Cano and his wife of nearly 30 years, Colleen, attended college while working and raising their family together. He credits his wife for helping him achieve his educational accomplishments and professional advancements.

When asked what being Latinx means to him, Cano tells us: “It's not just one thing. The Mexican culture I grew up in is based on hard work. You take care of your family, you're honest and you sacrifice. It's a lot about family and respect.”

He adds: “My personal story is a small part of the Latinx-American story. We are all very different, with differences in language, upbringing, education, physical features, and journeys. I want to respect and honor our differences during Hispanic Heritage Month. We all come from somewhere and the true goal is to come together to solve common problems. We all are different but share the same needs. To experience people of diverse backgrounds and interests coming together to achieve common goals is very powerful. We do not get through this life journey by ourselves, but with the combined hard work and support of those around us.”  

At the Department of Commerce, we recognize that America’s diversity has always been our greatest strength. The Hispanic American community is deeply rooted in the history of the United States and is an integral part of the rich fabric of our nation. True to our mission of creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity—for all Americans—the Commerce Department works every day to support and invest in the Hispanic business community.