READY TO GO!

Hello Global Glimpsers & Family!

I am so happy to be traveling with you this summer as one of your Global Glimpse Leaders! This is my first trip with Global Glimpse so I am looking forward to our journey together. I also have not been to Costa Rica before so I am very excited to experience a new country.

My name is Socrates R. Ortiz Jr.; a Dominican-American born and raised in New York City. I am the proud Principal of a NYC High School and a social worker. I am the product of Dominican parents, my parents immigrated to the USA in the late 1960s to form a family and give their unborn children the opportunities they did not have in their lives. I am grateful to them and have honored them by living my professional life trying to give people in my path the opportunities to better themselves and pass it forward.

Although this is my first trip with Global Glimpse, I am an avid traveler. Starting my own travel program at my high school and I have also been an Ambassador Resident Director on Semester at Sea, a cruise ship traveling worldwide with over 800 college students, I teach college Sociology and was Director of Operations for a 30-acre facility and supervised over 200 employees. I also worked for 10 years as a Psychotherapist at a mental health clinic in the New York area.

 My international travel includes Venezuela, Brazil, Dominican Republic, South Africa, Kenya, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Spain, England, Germany, Amsterdam, Switzerland, France, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Haiti, Lichtenstein, Austria, and many more.

I currently hold two Master’s Degrees one in Educational Administration and the other in Social Work, I have vast experience in leadership positions, including for the past 20 years as Director of the Guidance Department, Assistant Principal, and Principal of two high schools in the New York City Department of Education.

I am happily married and have a 5-year-old son and a 2-year daughter. Both of my children have type 1 diabetes, which has been a new challenge for both my wife and me in our lives.

On the wall in my office, I have four words that inspire my leadership style: Transparency, Respect, Fairness, and Consistency. These four words will follow me on my continuous journey.

See you Soon!