Katherine Davalos Ortega

American politician

• Born: July 16, 1934
• Place of Birth: Tularosa, New Mexico

As one of the first Latinas to hold a high government position, Ortega provided a role model and example for all women with political aspirations.

Early Life

Donaciano Ortega and Catarina Davalos, the parents of Katherine Davalos Ortega (ohr-TAY-gah), were from pioneer families that in the 1800s settled in what later became the state of New Mexico. The couple married and had nine children, of which Ortega was the youngest. Donaciano held many different jobs, including deputy US marshal, which he began at the age of sixteen. He also worked at a copper mine, had a blacksmith shop, and did carpentry work. The family moved to Tularosa, a town with fewer than three thousand inhabitants, so that the children could attend high school. The family owned and operated a restaurant and dance hall in Tularosa, then a restaurant and a furniture store in nearby Alamogordo, New Mexico. Ortega’s oldest sister, Ellen, founded the Otero Savings and Loan Association there in 1974. The businesses were moderately successful, but the family had a modest income.

Working in the family restaurant provided Ortega with early training in business skills. Even at the age of ten, she showed such facility with numbers that she was allowed to work the cash register. All the Ortega children participated in the family business, and each had a say in its operation.

Donaciano encouraged his children to learn English, though Spanish was their first language, and Ortega attended schools where Spanish was used rarely or never. While a senior in high school, she worked at the Otero County State Bank in Alamogordo. After high school, she worked in a bank for two years to save money to pay her college tuition.

Ortega graduated with honors from Eastern New Mexico University in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in business and economics. She also studied secondary education, giving some thought to teaching high school business courses, but she was told not to bother applying for jobs in the eastern part of the state because her Hispanic background would disqualify her. She decided to abandon teaching, disgusted with the discrimination that kept her from pursuing her preferred career to the level of her ability and in a location of her choice.

Life’s Work

Soon after her graduation, Ortega started an accounting firm in Alamogordo with her sister Ellen. She held several accounting positions in New Mexico and later in California, after she moved to Los Angeles in 1967. From 1969 to 1972, she worked as a tax supervisor with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Company, one of the largest accounting firms in the United States. In 1972, Ortega was recruited by Pan American National Bank of Los Angeles to serve as its vice president and cashier. Her accounting skills and bilingualism aided in her work with the local Latino community. In December, 1975, she was selected as president and director of the Latino-owned Santa Ana State Bank, becoming the first woman to be president of a commercial bank in California. In 1978, respecting the wishes of her mother, who was in ill health, Ortega returned to New Mexico. She became a consultant to the family-owned Otero Savings and Loan Association, which grew to have assets of $20 million while she was associated with it. She became a certified public accountant (CPA) in 1979.

Ortega became active in the Republican Party in college and joined the Young Republicans soon after graduation. Following her return to New Mexico, Ortega’s involvement in politics intensified. She worked as a precinct chair for the party in Alamogordo and assisted in the campaign of Senator Pete Domenici. The Republican Party called on her to serve as a liaison with Latino and women’s organizations.

Ortega was rewarded for service to the Republican Party in April 1982, with her first presidential appointment, when Ronald Reagan named her to the ten-member Advisory Committee on Small and Minority Business Ownership. In December of that year, she was appointed to the five-person Copyright Royalty Tribunal, which was created in the late 1970s to set royalty fees that cable television systems had to pay to copyright holders of broadcast programs. Among other duties, the tribunal also set the fees that jukebox operators paid to copyright holders of music.

While Ortega was serving on the Copyright Royalty Tribunal, Reagan recognized her professional abilities. On September 12, 1983, on the recommendation of Senator Domenici, who was then chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Reagan nominated Ortega as treasurer of the United States. Ortega would replace Angela M. Buchanan, who left office after the birth of her first child. The nomination came at a ceremony marking the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Week. Reagan’s nominating speech pointed out the positive influence of the strength and decency of the Latino family. At the ceremony announcing her nomination, Ortega stressed the opportunities increasingly becoming available to women but noted the importance of self-reliance.

Ortega was sworn in on October 3, 1983, becoming the thirty-eighth holder of the position of treasurer of the United States. Praising her for her professionalism and commitment to Republican principles, President Reagan remarked at the swearing-in ceremony, “Being Treasurer gives one a certain immortality, because it’s the Treasurer’s name which appears on all new paper currency. I can’t think of a better name to have on our money than [that of] Katherine Ortega.” After being sworn in by Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan, she signed special forms that were later used to add her signature to printing plates from which US currency would be produced. Ortega was the tenth woman, and the second Latina, to be US treasurer, following Romana Acosta Bañuelos, who served in the position from 1971 to 1974. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, the position traditionally was given to a woman as a reward for service to her party and to the president. Ortega’s new appointment made her the highest-ranking Latina or Latino in the Reagan administration.

As US treasurer, Ortega supervised the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the US Mint, and the US Savings Bond Division. At the time of her appointment, Ortega oversaw five thousand employees and a budget of $340 million; her salary was $63,800 per year. The treasurer is a senior member of the staff of the secretary of the treasury, who is a member of the president’s cabinet. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing produces US currency as well as other documents and postage stamps. Ortega’s signature soon began to appear in the lower left-hand corner on the front of each unit of US paper currency. During her tenure, her name appeared on some 5.5 billion bills worth about $60 billion. She also oversaw the burning of worn-out currency and the settling of claims for counterfeit government checks.

In 1985, Ortega was given the responsibility of promoting the sale of US Liberty Coins, special gold and silver commemorative coins designed to raise $40 million to pay some of the costs of restoring the Statue of Liberty.

During 1984, Ortega traveled around the country speaking to various Latino and Republican groups. Although hers was not a policy-making position, she was important in articulating the Republican Party’s position on policy issues. Ortega’s most important speaking engagement came at the end of the year, when she was chosen to give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas. This honor recognized her accomplishments as a government official. She noted at the time that she was firmly committed to Reaganomics and the Republican Party, saying that she was “born a Republican.” Political analysts widely expected a woman to be chosen to deliver the keynote address, but Senator Nancy Kassebaum and cabinet members Elizabeth Dole and Margaret Heckler, all with much more tenure at high levels of the federal government, were considered more likely to be chosen for the honor. In her speech, Ortega referred several times to her Latino heritage, and she included several phrases in Spanish. She noted how many people of Spanish descent were leaving the Democratic Party and welcomed them to the Republican fold.

Ortega’s high profile at the convention served to dispel complaints that the Reagan administration was not committed to appointing women to high positions. Ortega made a point in her many speeches of emphasizing the numerous subcabinet positions that Reagan had filled with women.

Ortega served as treasurer of the United States until 1989. She was married to Lloyd J. Derrickson on February 17, 1989. In 1991 President George H. W. Bush appointed her alternative representative to the United Nations General Assembly. After leaving government service, she worked as a consultant to the family-owned business, Otero Savings and Loan Association, and operated a private accounting practice, while often participating in conferences dedicated to Latinos and women in business.

In 1992, Ortega was elected to the board of directors of the Kroger Company and also has served on the boards of Ralston Purina Company, Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corporation, and Catalyst, a research and advisory organization dedicated to increasing business opportunities for women, and she is on the Board of Regents for the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. Furthermore, she served on the advisory board for the National Park Service and Leadership America. She has been a member of Executive Women in Government and the American Association of Women Accountants. She was a director of Rayonier, Washington Mutual Investors Fund, and J. P. Morgan Value Opportunities Fund; trustee of the American Funds Tax Exempt Series I; chair of the Public Responsibilities Committee; and a member of the Financial Policy Committee.

In 2002, she was awarded the Horatio Alger Award by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, given to people who succeed despite adversity. In her later years, Ortega moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Significance

Ortega serves as an example of how determination and hard work can lead to success in a chosen field. Although she came from a modest background and suffered discrimination that made her abandon teaching, her first career choice, she earned professional credentials and through her dedicated work won the recognition of the Republican Party. She was well qualified when President Reagan looked for a candidate to fill the position of US treasurer.

As treasurer, Ortega was one of the highest-ranking Latino members of the Reagan administration. Her service most likely played some part in the increasing numbers of appointments of people of Hispanic descent to high government positions. For example, her successor as treasurer of the United States, appointed by President Bush, was Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, a Latina, and the administration of President Bill Clinton included two Latinos, Henry G. Cisneros and Federico F. Peña, in cabinet-level positions as secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and secretary of Transportation, respectively.

Ortega’s life achievements and government service have been recognized and honored by many groups. She was given the 1977 Outstanding Alumni Award from Eastern New Mexico State University and also earned the California Businesswoman’s Achievement Award, the Damas de Comercio Outstanding Woman of the Year Award, a Distinguished Women’s Award from Northwood University, and the Horatio Alger Award. For her service in government, the Department of the Treasury presented her with the Alexander Hamilton Award, its highest honor. She received honorary doctorates of law from Kean College in 1985 and New Mexico State University in 1986 and a doctorate of social science from Villanova University in 1988.

Ortega was willing to serve as an example to other Latinas, noting that everyone encounters obstacles of some sort. When faced with discrimination, she chose a career in which her abilities would speak for themselves. She told the Boston Globe, "I hope they see me and say: 'Hey, there's hope. We can accomplish.'"

Bibliography

Brownstein, Ronald, and Nina Easton. Reagan’s Ruling Class: Portraits of the President’s Top One Hundred Officials. Presidential Accounting Group, 1982.

Clines, Francis X. “Reagan Names Hispanic Woman as Treasurer of the United States.” The New York Times, 13 Sept. 1983.

Edmunds, Lavinia. “Women to Watch at the Republican National Convention.” Ms., vol. 1, no. 1, 1984, pp. 1–10.

Gonzales, Manuel G. Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States. Indiana UP, 2000.

"Katherine D. Ortega." Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, horatioalger.org/members/detail/katherine-d-ortega/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Maxwell, Nicole. "Celebrated Women of Otero County: Katherine Ortega and Elizabeth Garrett." Alamogordo Daily News, 19 Mar. 2021, www.statesman.com/story/news/local/community/2021/03/19/celebrated-women-otero-county/4704394001/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

McFadden, Robert. “Choice for Treasurer: Katherine Davalos Ortega.” The New York Times, 13 Sept. 1983.

Morey, Janet, and Wendy Dunn. “Katherine Davalos Ortega.” Famous Mexican Americans, Dutton, 1989.

Salkowski, Charlotte. “GOP Keynoter Radiates Self-Help Ideals.” Christian Science Monitor, 17 Aug. 1984.