Liliana Silvestry likes to open doors for people.

Tuesday, September 05, 2000

Liliana Silvestry likes to open doors for people.

The new Welcome Center executive director has made a life’s work of opening doors to connect people to the services they need to succeed, or at least lead a better life. She did it in Puerto Rico, where she worked with disadvantaged families, and she did it in Indiana, where she has spent the last three years in a community center that provides a range of services, largely to minority populations.

In Austin, the first door Silvestry will open will be the door of the new Welcome Center, set to open in October in the south wing of the Reeve Chiropractic Center at 308 Fourth Ave. NW.

That, the charismatic woman said, will only be the beginning.

"For the newcomer to a community – any newcomer – there are so many issues with health, social services, all aspects of life," she said. "It is so important to make people feel welcome, to let them know there is someone willing to help and direct them, to make their lives easier."

Hired on Friday after a two-month search, the new executive director is everything the Welcome Center board and Apex Austin search committee could have wished for. The Italian-born business administration major was raised in Puerto Rico and is fluent in both Spanish and English. For the last three years at La Casa de Amistad, a much larger center in South Bend, Ind., she and her staff ran about 30 different programs focusing on education and awareness for about 24,000 people. La Casa had seven full-time employees, 125 volunteers and lots of community support.

"Her experience doing all those things, including organizing a major fund-raiser, was very important to us," Welcome Center board chairwoman Bonnie Tangren said after Silvestry accepted the job. "We can’t fail out of the chute, and I think hiring Liliana goes a long way toward assuring that won’t happen."

Tangren also said the board was impressed with Silvestry because of her warm and welcoming manner as well as her wealth of experience with building community relations.

"She’s definitely a community organizer," Tangren said. "I feel confident she will be able to develop trust in the various parts of the population. I think she’ll be very responsive to the needs of the community."

Silvestry is equally enthusiastic about Austin and its "visionary" citizens. She also likes the idea of starting from scratch.

"It’s neat when you start something and can see all the potential," Silvestry said from her home in South Bend this weekend. "When I became director at La Casa, it already had been here 26 years. Now I feel good about everything with La Casa, and I can move on to another place. I feel very strongly about the mission of places like the Welcome Center."

So, even though she wasn’t looking for another job – Silvestry was referred to the search team by Development Corp. of Austin director George Brophy – she will come to Austin. She will bring with along her 15-year-old son, Elvin, whom she described as an "equally adventurous soul."

Once here, Silvestry said, one of her first tasks will be getting to know Austin and its residents. Commenting that she feels like she’s been in South Bend 20 years already because she knows so many people there, she said she’s looking forward to the same process in Austin.

"In a place like the Welcome Center, you work with so many organizations – you have to meet everyone so you can know what’s going on and how it works," she said. "I can’t be shy. I have to find the people who will help me open doors."