About Patrick Roybal

I also completed a vocational welding certification program during this time. Prior to completing my BA degree, I began part time employment in the Alamosa School District as a Supplemental Services Provider for the San Luis Valley Area Vocational School. Upon graduation from Adams State, I initially applied for an elementary school teacher’s aide position at Sierra Grande School District. Over time I worked in various capacities including teacher, librarian, and educational computer technologist until December of 1999. I also worked in the North Conejos School District as an educational computer technologist and network engineer as a part time employee for the 1998/1999 school year. In 1999 I obtained my Cisco Network Associate and Network Academy Instructor Certifications. On January 15th of 2000, I began my career as a computer network engineer at Adams State University until my retirement in 2022. During my tenure at Adams State, I served Adams State Campus Classified Employees as a President of the Classified Employees’ Council for a total of 8 years over 3 different terms.

I have worked in my various positions with humility and have striven to be accountable, open, honest, and committed to doing my best as if I were doing work for myself or other respected people in my life. I’ve also worked in agriculture doing everything from mechanic, equipment operator, irrigator, and head ditch digger. I’ve cut and hauled firewood since childhood. I’ve poured concrete and built houses; in short, I’m not afraid of work. I’ve become familiar with a variety of trades and have even mastered some. I believe, at this time of political turmoil in the United States, Costilla County needs strong, intelligent leadership to navigate through the changing landscape of governmental funding and potential civil rights abuses. We need to become adept at dealing with other entities that provide soft funding that we can hopefully make use of to back fill grant funding that has disappeared since the advent of the current federal administration. Our local county governmental systems need to be reviewed and updated so that we are spending taxpayers’ money in an efficient and useful manner. We need to maximize and preserve our resources so that we can ultimately improve our citizens’ lives.

I’m also a current member of the Colorado State Pension Review Subcommittee. Our mission is to review the status of the various pensions in our state, most notably Colorado PERA, and make recommendations to the State Legislature. I continue to serve on this subcommittee to work on improving the benefits Colorado PERA retirees receive, particularly regaining a COLA that keeps up with inflation. I have been an employee of the people of the State of Colorado for over 34 years.

I, as a duly elected commissioner, will work to improve citizen access to our county governmental processes through open communication so that we can improve our relationship with all residents utilizing our services. I hope to identify new innovations that we can bring to our county to improve our economic standing without endangering the positive aspects we so dearly love that make our communities unique and valuable so that we might be able to keep more of our youth gainfully employed. We need to bolster our relationship with State resources to help them and us defend our constitutional rights as citizens. We are losing many of the best of our kids to the Front Range or other metropolitan areas because there is simply nothing here for them. And for those who stay we must do our best to keep the negative societal aspects at bay like drug and alcohol abuse/addition. Our county demographic regarding drug and alcohol addiction closely resembles that of many of our nation’s Indian Reservations. Losing our culture, language, and heritage is a sure way to lose too many of our youth to the deadly demons of addiction.