It was an easy choice for Adriana Rocha Garcia to become the inaugural president and CEO of the Center for Health Empowerment in South Texas after six years on the City Council.

The position combines her passions for health care and serving the South Side — natural inclinations for the native San Antonian who grew up there.

While her educational background in health literacy began while earning her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, her interests are rooted deeper. 

“I’ve essentially been managing (my parents) health care needs since I was young, just like I was balancing their checkbooks for them since I was young,” Rocha Garcia said. 

She was 12 when she began taking an active role in her parents’ medical lives, helping manage her father’s diabetes. Her parents attended school until second grade in Mexico, so she was often translating information for her parents and neighbors.

Both her parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which Rocha Garcia said ignited a passion for her to spread awareness of its early signs. From medical needs to empowering people about how food can impact health, she uses her own experiences to navigate. 

“We can save a lot of heartache in the future,” she said. 

The pandemic came to Texas while Rocha Garcia was serving on City Council, and it hit her jurisdiction, District 4, hard. She championed making vaccines available on the South Side. The need to increase health literacy and access was only amplified when Texas Vista Medical Center in South San Antonio closed in 2023. 

As the leader of the Center of Health Empowerment, Rocha Garcia helps the center meet its primary goals: closing the lifespan gap for those impacted by locational social determinants of health, increasing health care access, and training the next generation of health care workers and administrators. 

Now with the health center, Rocha Garcia is spearheading a new project: converting 12 South San ISD classrooms in a school building that has been unused for two years. The 13,000 square feet will be a conduit for nonprofits to provide a variety of services to the community. 

“The less they have to focus on paying a full rent for a building, they could put that money into services,” she said. “We know that immediately goes back to the community.”

Rocha Garcia served as president of San Antonio Housing Fund, helping establish over 7,000 affordable housing units in San Antonio. She also was president of Women in Municipal Government. 

Public service has been central to her professional life, she said, because of how much she had benefited from it — like the four-year scholarship she got with the San Antonio Education Partnership. She described it as the “multiplier effect” — creating opportunities for kids like her. 

“It’s going to take me an entire lifetime to pay back my community, what they’ve done for me,” Rocha Garcia said. “I’m a product of so many scholarships. I’m a product of public school. So the taxpayers, everybody who contributes to our economy, they’re the reason that I’m here.” 

Rocha Garcia said running for mayor in 2025 helped broaden her perspective, as she became aware of the niche needs in different parts of the city. 

She has no hesitation when asked if she will run for mayor again. 

“Yes, absolutely,” she said. “That’s the only other thing that I want to run for ever.” 

Her motivation is just as clear as her certainty to run again. 

“There’s never been a Mexican American woman to serve as mayor … the majority of our population,” Rocha Garcia said. “There’s also never been anyone from the South Side of San Antonio. 

“We’re seeing that the community has not been invested in for many, many years. It’s time that the South Side also shared in the leadership.”

 

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