IDEASNET.ORG - Key Persons
Dr. Garber has been a founder of some 15 other social enterprises and development organizations in North and Latin America. One distinguishing mark is that Dr. Garber not only founds social enterprises but turns them over in a turn-key manner to indigenous staff after ensuring their viability. He builds enterprises to last - eight have continued beyond their 20th anniversary and four are celebrating 3 decades. Carter was the founding staff member of Metro Fair Housing Services that has celebrated its 42th anniversary.
Carter was the founding CEO of TecAp, which was the first microfranchise in Nicaragua. It trained 76 youth microfranchisees as solar installers of rooftop systems and 100 women microfranchisees who sold small solar items in remote rural areas of northern Nicaragua. He helped arrange financing for coffee coop members and others to be able to buy solar systems.
Dr. Carter Garber, the IDEAS CEO, has four decades of professional experience in the field of community economic development in developing countries and communities. As an economist, evaluator, and practitioner, he has been an international finance and development consultant and trainer on four continents. Having been an international pioneer in impact evaluation and impact investing, Carter continues to assist investors, investment funds, social enterprises, and organizations at the community level who are creating the impacts. See more.
Juan Gómez Cruces is a Mexican national who has worked in the Atlanta office of IDEAS for 6 years. He is the Coordinator of International Institutional Relations and has worked with several consultancies, including helping to evaluate an impact investment fund that lends to 6 countries in Latin America and a major consultancy focused on improving a youth entrepreneurship program to be scaled up to 10 countries. He is working on the programs of IDEAS in Central America and Mexico. Some of them have been developing formal and informal training opportunities for youth in Central America. The program on turning Central American refugees into immigrants with loans in Mexico.
Juan was born in Mexico and finished his BA in the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Estado de México. He taught community development skills to low-income youth at the Open and Distance Learning University of Mexico (UnADM). He has been committed to help low-income youth seek employment and enterprise opportunities. He completed a MA in Political Science at the University of Colorado-Denver and is working on a Ph.D. in Political Science in Georgia State University.