’81 B.S. PSYCHOLOGY

1993-1994 President, UPAA-SD

Susan was born and raised in Olongapo City, Philippines. She immigrated to San Diego in 1983 and has lived here ever since. She has worked with various mortgage banking companies until 1991 when she ventured into the publishing business as a partner in charge of marketing with a newspaper called The Filipino Press.

She also held the position of co-publisher with the newspaper’s late founder and editor, Ernie Flores Jr. She assumed the company’s leadership after Ernie’s untimely demise in January 2005, taking care of not only the business and marketing but also the editorial operations of the paper that started being a monthly but has grown to be a weekly, in order to ensure the continuous service of a reliable news source to the Filipino community. Although her forte is marketing, she also has dabbled into writing a column in The Filipino Press, entitled “The Publisher’s Desk”.

Since 1991, Susan has networked successfully to enhance her business connections with numerous groups, having been a member and officer of various business and community organizations including but not limited to the Filipino-American Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Asian Business Association, National City Chamber of Commerce and many more.

She is the first lady president of the El Toyon Tennis Club based in National City. She formed and managed the mixed doubles team, and led it to win the San Diego City 2006 Mixed Doubles championship. In 2007, she became one of the members of the board of directors for San Diego District Tennis Association, a position she is to serve until 2010.

She has garnered several awards notably Inner Strength Award in September 2006, awarded by Women, Inc. and a nominee to the Asian Heritage Awards in 2006 – Media category as sponsored by AsiaMedia, Inc.

Her past achievements include: Former president of University of the Philippines Alumni Association of San Diego, recipient of the Maria Clara Sorority Woman of Elegance in Business award, Fil-Am Chamber of Commerce and other leadership awards from various Filipino community organizations. 

For over 10 years now, she has been producing one of the most popular events for the San Diego Fil-Am community called Filipino Family Day every July at Knott’s Soak City in Chula Vista, the largest water park in San Diego County. Because of her extensive promotional efforts, the event draws crowds in the thousands from all over Southern California.

To her credit, too, she has also produced some local talent shows like the Seafood City’s Annual Karaoke Competition, and at least three major concerts in San Diego that featured artists from Los Angeles and the Philippines. 

In her spare time, Susan loves to read, play scrabble, do karaoke singing, spend time with her family and of course play tennis, go to swap meets or farmer’s markets.