Today we’d like to introduce you to Octavio Villalobos.
Hi Octavio, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Los Angeles on the 4th of July of 1986, but have always lived, studied and worked in Tijuana, Baja California, México. I have always been a good student, raised in a family with clear academic, work and social goals. Although I have always had an interest in organizations, I studied biology in high school and medicine in college without imagining that a master’s degree in health sciences would lead me to be the youngest director of a non-profit health organization in Tijuana at the age of 27.
In this organization, I learned that organizations are a reflection of their individuals and that governing boards do not always put the interests of their organization above their own. Two years later, having achieved the organization’s medical center certification, I was fired upon discovering that the governing board had authorized two fraudulent renovations that had prevented the medical center from being certified prior to my arrival. The organization had paid for renovations in the homes of members of the governing board, diverting more than two million pesos (more than one hundred thousand dollars today) and creating a debt that I had to restructure, only to be fired the same day I received the news of the certification. For months, I had daydreamed of founding my own organization, based on my family and personal values, with the aim of rescuing a 20-year-old abandoned mansion in the heart of the Independencia neighborhood of Tijuana, one of the oldest areas of the city. I knew their heirs and was confident that if I presented them with a good project, they would give me the opportunity to transform their property and create value for them and their community. My dismissal and my resilience gave me the energy and time to make my dream come true. I presented my project in January 2016 and made it come true in January 2017. For a year, with the help of twelve independent professionals from various sectors, including architecture, communication, law, journalism and medicine, we cleaned the property, raised funds, installed doors and windows, enabled the first service areas, and founded the “Casa de la Salud en Tijuana” (House of Health in Tijuana). Mexican guitarist Miguel de Hoyos was instrumental in the fundraising event that allowed the completion of the first stage of the project. I will always be grateful.
With more than 13,454 square feet of land and more than 8,611 square feet of construction, the enablement of the property has been an ongoing process that began in July 2016 and is scheduled to finish in July 2022. During this time, we have set up a medical office, a nutrition office, a psychology office, a special education office for children, a special education office for young people, a physical rehabilitation clinic, an ophthalmology office and a teaching room, each one managed and operated by a specialist or a non-profit organization, under the mission of bringing health services closer to the community, in a city world-famous for its medical tourism and dominated by health professionals who put their economic interests on top of their community commitments. Between January 2017 and January 2021, Casa de la Salud has treated more than 1,500 patients with more than 7,500 physical, mental and social health services.
In January 2020, after four years at the helm of Casa de la Salud, I made the decision to complement my studies in biology and health with studies in administration. Seven years after my master’s degree, I returned to university as a doctoral student in management sciences, with the objective of studying the relationship that transparency has with resources in non-profit organizations in Mexico and with the goal of creating a transparency model that improves communication between these organizations and their stakeholders. In some strange way, biology and medicine brought me back to the interest of my childhood and youth: the organizations. Today, more than ever, I know that everything is organization, from the society that we compose to the particles that compose us.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The first obstacle I had to face was having named the non-profit organization that financed the opening of the Casa de la Salud after my name. I did it to put my reputation as a guarantee, but in Mexico, there is a tendency to demean the project and the work of others, and the medical sector itself, my sector, was the first to criticize me, judge me as a narcissist and turn my back for daring to dream. In Mexico, a doctor is not expected to found organizations but to write prescriptions in a pharmacy’s office. To date, my relationship with other doctors is limited to the sincere friends I have made from college. The second obstacle I have had to face is the fact that in Mexico, people promise what they want to be able to do instead of promising what they can and intend to do for you and your organization. It is a very informal culture, in which it is preferred to give five pesos to a homeless person to keep him on the street than to donate five pesos to a serious organization with a scientifically supported project to get that homeless off the street. I thought these observations were my occurrences, but I have already had the opportunity to read scientific studies that confirm it.
The third obstacle that I have had to face is the government. At the local, state and national level, the government sees nonprofits as competition (and with good reason) since we solve problems with resources and capacities that politicians do not have, altruistically and efficiently. In Mexico, it is preferred to have poor dependents than self-sufficient citizens for fear of discovering that the government is the only conglomerate of inefficient non-profit organizations. In Mexico, non-profit organizations are more harassed than drug cartels.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In 2016, my organization started as the Fundación Dr. Octavio Villalobos (Dr. Octavio Villalobos Foundation). In 2021, as part of the natural evolution of organizations, the board of directors approved changing the name to Instituto Dr. Octavio Villalobos (Dr. Octavio Villalobos Institute). In this new stage, my organization seeks to capitalize on the knowledge, experience and wisdom acquired by all members through the Casa de la Salud to help in the birth, administration and development of other non-profit organizations, accompanying to its stakeholders through the complicated process of overcoming government bureaucracy and people’s apathy. I said it at TEDx Tijuana 2016: if we merged all the non-governmental non-profit organizations in Mexico, we would achieve a conglomerate functional and self-sufficient enough to promote a movement against corruption of the national, state and local governments. Until that happens, we have the opportunity to facilitate the emergence of more and better organizations. The twenty-first century is no longer about reproducing ourselves more, but about organizing ourselves better.
In the next five years, Instituto Dr. Octavio Villalobos (Dr. Octavio Villalobos Institute) aspires to be the most prestigious laboratory and incubator for non-profit organizations in Tijuana. Anyone who, like me, has daydreamed of founding their own non-profit organization should have the confidence to reach out.
Can you talk about how you think about risk?
Risk is a requirement for success. But it’s like statistics: there is a chance that something will go wrong, but there is also a chance that something will go right. The strategy for success is precisely about maximizing the chance that things will turn out well, often maximizing risk. In each tactic, you must put at risk only what you are willing to lose, in order to advance in the strategy. Eventually the risk becomes so routine that it is not felt. Although I do not consider myself a risky person, I think that having dedicated myself to founding my organization, enabling the abandoned mansion and creating the Casa de la Salud, instead of working for another non-profit organization, has been the great risk of my professional life, but it has had great rewards. For example, through the Casa de la Salud I met my wife.
Contact Info:
- Email: droctaviovillalobos@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.octaviovillalobos
Image Credits
Some photographs are courtesy of the photographer Christian “Pleco” Corona.
