South Bay LGBTQ office hires new manager
Santa Clara County's Office of LGBTQ Affairs has a new leader. Sera Fernando, a Filipina asexual queer transgender person, was named leader of the county department June 13.Fernando was appointed by Rocio Luna, deputy county executive, and former Office of LGBTQ Affairs manager Maribel Martínez.Martínez, the office's first manager, was promoted to program manager III in the county's Division of Equity and Social Justice in July 2021, according to her LinkedIn profile.Fernando, 42, had been serving as the office's interim manager and senior management analyst since January 18.
She replaced Daniel Moretti, who has a master's of science degree and was the office's program manager who served as interim manager under the same provision since April 2020, Martínez stated in a June 13 email to the Bay Area Reporter.
Moretti took the community engagement lead at PRIDEnet/The Pride Study at Stanford University in January, according to his LinkedIn profile.During the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Martínez was pulled out of the LGBTQ affairs office to work in the county's Emergency Operations Center, along with many other employees.
She told the B.A.R. in July of that year that the office was still operating virtually, serving the South Bay's LGBTQ community through the global public health crisis.
