Cordero Holmes

Most college students arrive on campus straight from high school, but that wasn’t the path for Cordero Holmes. At 35, he’s graduating with honors from Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs, earning his bachelor’s degree in public service and public policy. His journey to this moment didn’t begin in a classroom — it began in the streets of southwest Phoenix, where he became involved in gangs at an early age.

“In and out of institutions since I was a juvenile,” as he puts it, Holmes spent much of his adolescence in detention. As an adult, he was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison. After his release, he found himself not only rebuilding his life but doing so as a single father of two — one of whom is autistic.

His turning point came during three years in solitary confinement. With nothing but silence and time to think, he began questioning everything — his choices, his identity, and the kind of future he wanted for himself and his children. He realized that education could be his way forward.

Holmes began taking college courses through Rio Salado College’s re-entry program for incarcerated students. Once released, he took a labor-intensive job in Glendale, Arizona, packaging and lifting concrete in brutal weather conditions. The work was exhausting, but it paid the bills and helped him regain custody of his kids.

From there, his momentum was unstoppable. He completed two associate degrees at Rio Salado College and served as the college’s 2022 Student Commencement Speaker. His academic excellence and service earned him a place on the Phi Theta Kappa All-Arizona Academic Team — a distinction that came with valuable tuition scholarships. He was also awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship and the Hites Transfer Scholarship through Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society Foundation, allowing him to transfer to Arizona State University.

Once at ASU, Holmes didn’t just attend — he led. A proud member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, he was recently selected as Mr. Indigenous at ASU 1st Attendant for 2024–2025, a role in which he will serve as a goodwill ambassador at cultural events on campus and throughout Indian Country. His community service extends far beyond campus as well: he has served as a fellow at St. Vincent de Paul, worked with the Computing Alliance for Hispanic Serving Institutions at the University of Texas at El Paso, contributed to the Maricopa Council on Black American Affairs, and advised the Arizona Department of Education’s Indian Education Advisory Council on policies affecting Indigenous youth.

His story has been shared nationally, too. In 2022, he was featured in Being Free, a PBS Roadtrip Nation documentary in which he and two other formerly incarcerated individuals traveled the country in an RV, sharing their experiences of reentry and transformation. In 2023, he received the Phoenix Human Relations Commission’s Martin Luther King Jr. Living the Dream Award. Holmes was honored with the 2025 Arizona State University (ASU) MLK Jr. Student Servant Leadership award, and this spring, he was named a 2025 Outstanding Alumni Award from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).

Cordero's goal is simple but powerful: to use policy and public service to build pathways for others who, like him, were once told that their future was limited. His story is proof that a person’s past does not have to define their future — and that sometimes the strongest leaders are forged in the hardest places.