Catalina Vasquez Villalpando

Catalina "Cathi" Vásquez Villalpando (born April 1, 1940) is the 39th Treasurer of the United States who served from December 11, 1989, to January 20, 1993 under President George H. W. Bush and is the only U.S. Treasurer ever to be sent to prison.

She had held minor positions under President Ronald Reagan and had chaired the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.

In 1969, Villalpando became an assistant to the local director of the Community Service Administration where she dealt with minority and business issues.

Villalpando eventually became director and, later, worked for the now defunct Office of Economic Opportunity.

By the late 1970s, Villalpando was working for the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) in Texas.

In 1979, Villalpando returned to the private sector taking up the position of vice president for the Mid-South Oil Company.

She also organized her own consulting firm, V. P. Promotions, providing public relations to minority-owned savings and loan institutions under a federal contract.

Villalpando was an early supporter of George H. W. Bush for the 1980 election cycle.

After Ronald Reagan secured the GOP nomination, she enthusiastically volunteered in the Reagan-Bush campaign effort in Texas.

She was rewarded with a position as staff assistant in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel when Reagan took up office in 1981.

Later that year, she returned to Texas where she served as the voter groups coordinator for the TRP.

For the next two years, Villalpando was a prolific activist in both Republican and Hispanic circles, serving on the boards of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the American GI Forum.

Additionally, she was appointed to seats on the Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at the Department of Transportation.

In 1983, Villalpando's work was noted by the Reagan administration and she returned to Washington, D.C. as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison.

In this capacity, she dealt with public interest groups, lobbyists, and the general public and soon stood out for her "formidable...administrative skills."

Villalpando's political profile also rose considerably when her skills and ethnicity were utilized in outreach efforts to attract Hispanics to the Republican Party.

After two years, Villalpando left government service again and, in August 1985, took up the position of senior vice president – as well as partner and large shareholder – at Communications International, Inc. (CII), a Norcross, Georgia-based telecommunications firm.

CII was run by its founder, Joseph Profit, a former Atlanta Falcons running back and popular businessman in Georgia who had served in various appointed capacities in the Reagan Administration and, later, the first Bush Administration.

Villalpando was one of several high-profile Republicans that Profit brought on board who helped the company garner millions in federal contracts.

Despite her leaving government service during this time, Villalpando's political involvement, especially in regards to bringing more Hispanics into the Republican Party, did not cease.

In 1987, Villalpando became the national chair for the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA).

At the time, the RNHA was the auxiliary of the Republican National Committee responsible for Hispanic outreach and advocacy on behalf of the Party.

The effort to get her elected as the group's leader came at a time when the presidential campaigns of then Vice President Bush and Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole were engaged in a particularly nasty competition to win the support of Hispanic Republicans for the 1988 election cycle.

Villalpando had developed a special talent for attracting Hispanics to the Party and, as a Bush ally, was expected to swing the support of the Assembly to his run for the GOP nod.

That same year, Villalpando's assumption of the RNHA leadership post came under scrutiny by the Commerce Department's inspector general.

An unrelated investigation was already underway looking into allegations that MBDA director James Richardson Gonzalez and Ernest Olivas, Jr., an MBDA employee, had been using their positions to drum up support for Bush's campaign.

The probe revealed that Olivas, a friend of Villalpando when the two were on staff together in the Reagan White House where he was the speech-writer for the vice president, had also been soliciting prominent Hispanic Republicans to support her bid for the RNHA chairmanship.

RNHA co-founder Francisco Vega was one of those contacted and who confirmed to investigators that Olivas had called him from his government office while on work time, a potential violation of the Hatch Act.

Villalpando's role was tangential to the investigation and she was not implicated in any wrongdoing.

Olivas subsequently left government service and became employed by Villalpando's company, CII, as manager of its Washington office.

On April 4, 1989, President Bush nominated Villalpando to be Treasurer of the United States.

She was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 20, 1989, and was sworn in by the president on December 11.

In attendance at her ceremony was Senator Phil Gramm of Texas and Gustavo Petricioli, Mexico's ambassador to the United States.

In 1994, Villalpando was found guilty of obstruction of justice and tax evasion.

Villalpando was born Catalina Vásquez to a poor family in San Marcos, Texas, one of four girls and two boys.

Villalpando's father, a lifelong Democrat and migrant worker, used to take her and her siblings out into the fields so they would know what it was like to pick crops for a living.

After attending parochial school, Villalpando graduated from San Marcos High School.

She subsequently went to work at a jewelry store and as a secretary at Southwest Texas State College, where she attended part-time.

She did not complete her studies at Southwest, but at the suggestion of her father enrolled at the University of Texas College of Business Administration.

Villalpando's association with Republican Party politics began at this time when she took a secretarial position with the Texas Republican Party in Austin, Texas while attending business school.