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US Virgin Islander of the Month |
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Michael Antonio Rodriquez was born January 18, 1959, as the 8th child of Mildred and Edward Rodriquez. From 1971 to 1973, Michael attended the Wayne Aspinal Junior High School, where he participated in the school band and was a member of the football team. Upon graduating from the eighth grade with honors, Michael attended the Charlotte Amalie High school from 1974 to 1977 and graduated in the top 10 percentile of his class of 469 students. Mr. Rodriquez received an academic scholarship as well as an award for being the fastest typist in the school. Whole attending Charlotte Amalie High School, Michael discovered and developed a love and gift for tennis and thus, was ranked number one as a junior tennis player for the Virgin Islands for four consecutive years. Upon graduation, he was offered three scholarships to attend various Ivy League colleges (Boston College, Trinity College, and Tuskegee Institute) to play on their tennis teams, but turned them down to pursue his dream of one day becoming a court and conference report. Striving towards that dream, Mr. Rodriquez received a full scholarship form the Government of the Virgin Islands to attend the Stenotype Institute of Jacksonville Florida in 1977. Through hard work and discipline, Michael became the first African American to graduate from that institution with a GPA of 4.0. In 1980, Mr. Rodriquez graduated from Stenotype Institute of Jacksonville as a qualified court reported and began working at the Territorial Court of the Virgin Islands as an official court reported to the Honorable Vern A. Hodge. As the youngest official court reporter, Mr. Rodriquez was assigned to the District Court in 1980 where he worked for the Honorable Chief Judge, Almeric L. Christian. He worked for the District Court of the Virgin Islands for 13 years before transferring to Alexandria, Virginia to become the official court reporter to the Honorable T. S. Ellis, III., Judge. Michael has worked in this capacity since 1995. He is a member in good standing with the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA). He has passed the Registered Professional Reporter's examination and the Registered Merit Reporter's Examination both administered by the NCRA. Mr. Rodriquez is a world-class reporter and speed competitor. He has competed in t he NCRA's National Shorthand Speed contest as well as the Intersteno World Championship Typewriting and Shorthand Competitions, where he ranked number 32 as a first time competitor and have since improved to presently being ranked number 7 in the world. As
a business entrepreneur, Michael owned
several business including Italian Fashions, A men's apparel store, Mr.
Potato and Burger, Champs Pizza, Champs Bakery and the Vitraco Park Bible
Book Store. Having a strong
desire to give back too the community, Mr. Rodriquez became the founder and
donor of the Michael A. Rodriquez Scholarship fund in 1986, of which
there were twelve recipients of whom nine have graduated from college. In
conclusion, Michael's daily principle for life comes from the words of The
Honorable Judge T.S. Ellis, III: "Life is making choices and
living with the consequences. If you make good choices in life, you
get good consequences and if you make bad choices in life you get bad
consequences. You are the author of you own life story. You also
write the pages of you own life story". |
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