Finding His Voice: Rex’s Story

June 30, 2025 | By NRCF Vol­un­teer

Meet Rex, a vol­un­teer schol­ar­ship review­er with Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund (NRCF) who knows first­hand the pow­er of edu­ca­tion­al sup­port for LGBTQ+ stu­dents.

Rex’s ear­li­est mem­o­ry of the gay com­mu­ni­ty was­n’t what you might expect. “It was the first time I had ever seen drag queens!,” Rex recalls. It was 1992 in Gainesville, Flori­da, and he was just 18 years old. The town’s first-ever Pride event had drawn about a cou­ple of hun­dred peo­ple to the local park—a mod­est gath­er­ing that would prove trans­for­ma­tive.

The cel­e­bra­tion took a fright­en­ing turn when the KKK arrived in full regalia—white robes and hats. “It was ter­ri­fy­ing,” he admits. Yet what hap­pened next would stay with him for­ev­er: local musi­cian Tom Pet­ty showed up to sup­port the event. The rock star had learned from a rel­a­tive on the police force that the hate group planned to dis­rupt the gath­er­ing, and he came to help defuse the ten­sion and stand with the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty. Thank­ful­ly, the day remained peace­ful.

“It was my entrance into the gay com­mu­ni­ty,” Rex reflects, “and it taught me some­thing impor­tant about ally­ship and courage.”

Hav­ing just grad­u­at­ed from high school, Rex was begin­ning the del­i­cate process of com­ing out to friends and fam­i­ly. “I start­ed to see how peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty were liv­ing their authen­tic lives, and that held great appeal to me,” he says. “At the same time, I knew I could­n’t let my guard down. I had to watch what I said and to whom I said it. But over time, I became more con­fi­dent, freer and was able to enjoy myself more.”

Grow­ing up gay in the South had been about sur­vival. “You have oth­er things on your mind,” he explains sim­ply. “You’re just try­ing to get through.” His high school grades reflect­ed this struggle—academics took a back­seat to the more press­ing need to nav­i­gate his iden­ti­ty in an unwel­com­ing envi­ron­ment.

Despite these chal­lenges, Rex was deter­mined to cre­ate a dif­fer­ent future for him­self. Work­ing var­i­ous jobs after high school led to bet­ter expe­ri­ences and slight­ly bet­ter pay with each job. When oppor­tu­ni­ties plateaued, Rex found him­self still seek­ing to grow, learn and devel­op both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.  He start­ed tak­ing voca­tion­al class­es at a junior col­lege, which then led him to obtain his Associate’s Degree in Jour­nal­ism.  Then he set his sights on a Bachelor’s Degree, which to him felt like the next nat­ur­al step of growth and oppor­tu­ni­ty.  

The California Dream

Rex’s ambi­tions soon out­grew his home­town. His fam­i­ly ran a small busi­ness start­ed by his grand­par­ents, but Rex was dri­ven to pur­sue high­er edu­ca­tion. “My fam­i­ly did­n’t expe­ri­ence the val­ue of col­lege,” he says. “They didn’t have the resources or the expe­ri­ence of nav­i­gat­ing high­er edu­ca­tion.”

But Rex was unde­terred. Through research, he dis­cov­ered that the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley had one of the best com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­grams in the coun­try. “I did­n’t even know where Berke­ley was on a map,” he laughs. “I looked it up and it sound­ed amaz­ing. After all, the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area was and is one of the gay mec­cas of the world!”

Small grants and schol­ar­ships became his life­line to a new real­i­ty. “I was able to piece togeth­er enough fund­ing, along with stu­dent loans and part-time work, to con­tin­ue my edu­ca­tion,” he says. “Those small schol­ar­ships and oppor­tu­ni­ties real­ly added up and made all the dif­fer­ence.” His col­lege essay, which explored grow­ing up and nav­i­gat­ing life as a gay man in the South, res­onat­ed with admis­sions offi­cers at Cal, earn­ing him a spot as a non-tra­di­tion­al trans­fer stu­dent in one of the most com­pet­i­tive appli­cant pools.

“Being myself has always been the key to my suc­cess,” Rex reflects. ” You get knocked down, but you keep going. That kind of resilience comes from grow­ing up LGBTQ+ and learn­ing how to nav­i­gate the world as a minor­i­ty while stay­ing true to who you are.”

Building a Career

After grad­u­at­ing from UC Berke­ley with a com­mu­ni­ca­tions degree and a minor in LGBTQ Stud­ies, Rex found his call­ing in human resources work, mov­ing through posi­tions at local non­prof­its and a career in pub­lic ser­vice. Even­tu­al­ly, he was hired in exec­u­tive leadership—a rar­i­ty for open­ly gay men at the time. “I was expect­ed to fit a cer­tain mold that was not shaped for who I was”, he recounts.

“I knew it was impor­tant to show up even more authen­ti­cal­ly in a lead­er­ship role,” he says. “I worked to make the cul­ture and agency poli­cies more inclu­sive — not only for the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty but for every­one. That com­mit­ment came from my own expe­ri­ence of not fit­ting in and hav­ing to nav­i­gate in a world not built with me in mind. What mat­tered most to me was that every employ­ee, no mat­ter who they were, felt val­ued, includ­ed, and knew with­out ques­tion that they were respect­ed and that their efforts mat­tered. Sad­ly, I often found myself alone in that per­spec­tive at the exec­u­tive lev­el, even though we were oper­at­ing in one of the most pro­gres­sive places on Earth.”

Today, Rex lives in San Diego Coun­ty with his spouse, where they are co-founders and part­ners of an HR con­sul­tan­cy focused on pub­lic sec­tor clients. Their approach is sim­ple but pow­er­ful: “We take a peo­ple-first approach by cen­ter­ing employ­ees’ expe­ri­ence and insights to tru­ly under­stand the needs of the indi­vid­ual and the orga­ni­za­tion. Lis­ten­ing and treat­ing oth­ers with respect  is the secret.”

Paying It Forward

Rex was recent­ly elect­ed to serve as the incom­ing board pres­i­dent of a pub­lic sec­tor human resources asso­ci­a­tion in San Diego, a vol­un­teer posi­tion that allows him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port oth­er pub­lic sec­tor HR pro­fes­sion­als. “Inclu­sive and respect­ful work­places lead to bet­ter pub­lic ser­vices and out­comes for the local com­mu­ni­ties we serve and at a frac­tion of the cost”, he says. In addi­tion, Rex vol­un­teers with Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund (NRCF), where he reviews schol­ar­ship appli­ca­tions from stu­dent appli­cants seek­ing finan­cial aid.

“Read­ing the stu­dents’ essays has been unex­pect­ed­ly mov­ing. I knew I want­ed to help peo­ple the way I was helped and rec­og­nized in my own life. Every stu­den­t’s sto­ry res­onat­ed with me at some lev­el,” Rex says. “The stu­dent appli­cants had come from all types of back­grounds. Their appli­ca­tions and essays remind­ed me of my own strug­gles, as well as the priv­i­lege I had. Despite the dif­fi­cul­ties I expe­ri­enced so far in life,  I hadn’t dealt with some of the very chal­leng­ing life expe­ri­ences these stu­dents were writ­ing about in their essays.”

What struck him most was the stu­dents’ com­mit­ment and hope despite their strug­gles. “The con­stant bar­rage of bad news can get you in a neg­a­tive space about the world,” he observes. “Do we have hope?  I try to look for the flow­ers blos­som­ing. I found those flow­ers in these stu­dents’ sto­ries. Despite their obsta­cles, they showed resilience and have attain­able objec­tives to help change the future—not just for them­selves, but for their fam­i­lies, their com­mu­ni­ties, and even peo­ple they don’t know.”

The Power of Recognition

For Rex, the schol­ar­ship dol­lars mat­ter less than the recog­ni­tion itself. “I have always thought about those small­er schol­ar­ships because I had to cob­ble them togeth­er, and it worked!” he says. “The pride you get when you receive a schol­ar­ship is real. It does­n’t mat­ter how much it is—what stands out is this: I am being rec­og­nized. It feels good.”

An LGBTQ+ schol­ar­ship car­ries even more sig­nif­i­cance. “This type of schol­ar­ship did­n’t exist when I was seek­ing finan­cial aid,” he notes. “These stu­dents are get­ting the affir­ma­tion that their iden­ti­ty is not just accept­ed but cel­e­brat­ed.”

Rex’s jour­ney from that fright­en­ing but piv­otal Pride event in Gainesville to his cur­rent role as an advo­cate and leader illus­trates the pow­er of resilience, authen­tic­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. His sto­ry reminds us that some­times the small­est gestures—a schol­ar­ship, a kind word, or sim­ply show­ing up—can change the tra­jec­to­ry of some­one’s life.

“You get knocked down, but you just keep going,” he says. “And some­times, you need a hand from peo­ple along the way. Now I get to be one of those hands for the next gen­er­a­tion of our beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty. Giv­en what I believe these stu­dents are going to accom­plish, I have a strong sense that our world will con­tin­ue to blos­som.”

Want to Make a Dif­fer­ence?

Here’s how you can sup­port LGBTQ+ stu­dents: