About ARG

A life-long resident of San Antonio, Adriana Rocha Garcia, Ph.D. was raised in and continues to call Southwest San Antonio home. Dr. Garcia has a passion for working with organizations that help San Antonio’s most underrepresented demographics. Raised in a Spanish-speaking household to parents with a first- and second-grade Mexican education, she became the first in her family with a college degree.
Dr. Garcia received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, to stay in town to care for her parents. Upon graduation from Incarnate Word, she was offered a job in the university’s Office of Public Relations and completed her Master’s degree from the same university one year later. In 2004, she was in a cohort of 12 students accepted into the University of Texas at Austin's Doctoral Advertising program, where ten years and many miles later, she became one of the first Hispanics to earn a Ph.D. in Advertising from UT’s prestigious Moody College of Communication.

Throughout her career, Dr. Garcia has held various administrative and consulting communications and marketing positions throughout her life, in organizations like SAMMinistries Furniture for A Cause, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the City of San Antonio, Southwest ISD, and Project QUEST. Today, Dr. Garcia is molding tomorrow’s leaders as an Assistant Marketing Professor at Our Lady of the Lake University, where she teaches marketing in the School of Business and Leadership.

Dr. Garcia served as Chair of the Alamo Area Council of Government’s Committee of Six, an executive committee of the Workforce Services Alamo Board in 2020. She serves on the following City Council committees: Governance; Intergovernmental Relations; Economic and Workforce Development, including the small business subcommittee; and serves as one of two Council Liaisons for the SA Ready to Work Program. Before serving as District 4 representative to City Council, Dr. Garcia served as the Chair of the City of San Antonio’s Ethics Review Board for nearly three years, where she was responsible for leading a team of ten representatives appointed to represent their districts in the recently passed changes to the Ethics and Municipal Finance Code that further enhance the public’s trust in local government.

In 2018, Dr. Garcia joined the board of Communities in Schools – San Antonio and was also named to the San Antonio Business Journal’s 40 Under 40. She was accepted into Leadership San Antonio 300, where she was a member of the Best Day Ever, the Civic Engagement Day team. In 2020, she received the Women of Excellence Award from the National Foundation of Women Legislators.

 

Dr. Garcia is a single mom to her son Steve, who is a student at Our Lady of the Lake University. Dr. Garcia visits her octogenarian parents daily in the home where she grew up in Southwest San Antonio, even if it is just to get a good night’s blessing from them before heading home.