Today we’d like to introduce you to Josue Melendez.
Hi Josue, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started my professional career as a K-12 educator. The focus of my career of public service has always been improving social, economic, and educational mobility in our DFW communities. While I worked for Irving ISD my role expanded past a classroom instructor, to include interventions in order to keep kids in school. Taking on more of a social worker role, addressing issues in the community that keep kids from going to school. This included addressing food insecurity, intervening in domestic situations, and referring stakeholders to resources in the area.
In 2023 I pivoted to higher education, now at UT Arlington. Mainly out of a need to finish a degree and consolidate the things I was focused on. It was around this time that my mom was dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Navigating this situation with school and work- during COVID-19 was becoming increasingly difficult. I really needed to have tunnel vision in order to overcome one thing at a time. I graduated in the spring of 2024 and my mom is in complete remission.
I currently serve as the Program Manager for the UT Arlington Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology Development. This opportunity to serve a more defined constituency has allowed me to explore two things in tandem; private sector business and entrepreneurship along with the impact of university programming and their role in economic development.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
At the start of my career, while I was still in school, my dad was deported, COVID was at its peak, and my mom was diagnosed with colorectal cancer, all around the same time. I failed almost every class that semester, lost my job at a financial firm, wrecked my car, and my health was up in the air. It felt like everything I touched was falling apart. None of it was actually my fault, but in the moment it sure felt like I was the problem. I started believing I was the common denominator in everything going wrong, and that’s a hard place to climb out of.
That stretch turned out to be one of the most important periods for my personal development and my ability to lead professionally, even though I couldn’t see it that way at the time. What I learned is that there’s no way around something like that. You have to go through it, literally. I feel like that instinct has showed up again when I launched 1 Million Cups Arlington and every new program I launch at UTA. For 1MC I had no funding, little institutional backing, no guarantee a single speaker or attendee would show up, and I was doing it on top of a full plate at CETD. People doubted it would work, but I kept moving anyway. The moment you stop moving forward is the moment nothing gets built. I still tell myself the same thing today: I’m not just going to get through this, I’m going to come out of it better. It’s what I tell the entrepreneurs I work with, the young people I mentor, and anyone who asks how to deal with hard times. You see it through, no matter how complicated it gets.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology Development (CETD) at the University of Texas at Arlington serves as the hub for entrepreneurial education, venture development, and innovation engagement on campus. We connect students and faculty with mentors, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, and community partners, helping turn early ideas into real, growing ventures.
What sets us apart is the structured pathway we’ve built, one that takes students and faculty from their very first exposure to entrepreneurship all the way through to launching a venture. It moves through five stages of structured programming. Few university entrepreneurship centers offer that level of intentional programming, so no matter where someone is starting from, there’s a clear next step for them.
We’re especially proud of MavMarket, where student entrepreneurs run real businesses in a live marketplace setting, and of Mav Pitch, UTA’s flagship business idea competition that has produced winners earning checks as large as $25,000. Our Deep Dive Accelerator then takes our top performers and gives them intensive, hands-on training in customer discovery, market validation, and pitch preparation.
CETD’s reach goes well beyond the classroom. We launched 1 Million Cups Arlington, a nationally recognized Kauffman Foundation program, to connect students directly with working entrepreneurs. We partner with Nucleate North Texas and Health Wildcatters to open doors into biotech, life sciences, and healthcare innovation, including through the Texas Healthcare Challenge. We participate as a Regional Organizer for Global Entrepreneurship Week North Texas, and we work with the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce, Northwest ISD, and K through 12 programs like the What’s Your Big Idea Camp to build the region’s innovation pipeline starting at the youngest levels.
I’d argue that universities and my counterparts at these institutions are the genuine connective tissue for the entrepreneurial ecosystem across North Texas, linking students, faculty, K through 12 students, entrepreneurs, and regional business leaders into one continuous pipeline of innovation and economic growth. UTA is a leader in the nursing industry, it is a leader in the engineering industry, and now it is also a leader in the business and entrepreneurship space.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
UTA students have access to one of the most generous pitch competitions in the country. UTA student entrepreneurs who participate in our business competition have the chance to win up to 40k in non-dilutive seed funding. This program is exclusive to UTA students, but most people have a the preconception that UTA is a commuter school with little to offer it’s students besides a degree, and that simply is not the case. Aside from a degree, this is a life-changing program, offered only to our students, and many people are not aware of it. Teaching students where these hidden gems is part of our job, opportunity discovery. I’d argue that programs like this uplift the value of a UTA degree.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @josmelendezz
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshamelendez/
