Hello! My name is Ryan Alvarado and I am from Bakersfield, California and I am the middle child of three boys. In Bakersfield, we endure summers of 111 degrees and winters of 30 degrees, two very different extremes. This, along with the notorious air quality ranked at third worst in the nation, meant very little to do growing up. Nevertheless, I was able to develop a strong affinity to sports, including football, golf, volleyball, cycling, and driving. During my junior year I noticed a significant problem at my school; we did not have a way for people to play volleyball unless they were on our girls’ volleyball team. This, along with my admiration of the sport, inspired me to start a volleyball club that allowed anyone to play during our lunch break and quickly became one of the largest clubs at the school. In addition to this, I found myself drawn to a vast car culture, dreaming of becoming a professional rally driver and drifter. My love of cars and discovering how things work made me want to become a mechanical engineer. My passion for driving and engineering lead me to meet with a cofounder of one of the largest car media companies in the world, Hoonigan, where they helped me with developing a revolutionary braking system. This experience, along with multiple other instances of speaking with industry leaders, lead me here to USD where I intend on majoring in Business Administration with the dream of starting a company of my own.