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Maria Viña-Rodriguez, UF CJC Class of 1991

Maria Teresa Viña-Rodriguez graduated from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications with a bachelor’s degree in public relations and a minor in travel and tourism industry.

While at UF, she was involved in the Public Relations Student Society of America and the Hispanic Student Association.

“I think my education at UF gave me a broad spectrum of the different career avenues I could take with PR,” Viña-Rodriguez said. “It just really exposed me to a much greater vision of what I could do with a communications degree.”

Viña-Rodriguez is a real estate agent for EWM Realty International in Miami and has also been a sales and marketing specialist for healthcare insurance company Humana.

In the 1990s, Viña-Rodriguez was a private banker for Citibank.  She said that learning her strengths and weaknesses through banking was very useful for her real estate business. One of her greatest accomplishments as a banker was managing a $70 million portfolio while interacting with different Latin American cultures.

“Being able to cross cultural borders and build a strong trust with my clients,”she said, “was a big achievement.”

In 2012, she was the project lead for the marketing department of Celebrity Cruises.

Looking to the future, Viña-Rodriguez intends to become a life coach. She said she is learning that there is an innate entrepreneur within herself, so she is looking to evolve as such.

“I’m a learner. I constantly need to be learning,” Viña-Rodriguez said. “That’s why, for me, I do switch up often and use my past experiences and bring them into different roles.”