Fernando C. Gomez is Vice Chancellor and General Counsel of the Texas State University System, of which Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College is a member.

A native of Gallup, New Mexico, he studied to be a Franciscan priest; received his B.A. cum laude from the University of New Mexico; and, earned a Juris Doctor (law) and a Ph.D. (American Culture) from the University of Michigan, writing his doctoral dissertation on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the document by which much of the Southwest came into the Union. He was a tenured professor at Michigan State University before entering the practice of law, serving as an assistant attorney general in Michigan and Texas.  He was in private practice in San Antonio, doing commercial litigation before becoming General Counsel of the 22-member California State University System.  He has served as Vice Chancellor and General Counsel of the Texas State University System for fourteen years and continues to teach (business law human rights for law enforcement officials) at two system universities.  He serves as legal counsel for the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce and is the principal author of the Texas School Administrator’s Law Guide and the Texas Teacher’s Law Guide (Omni Publishing), which publications served as the models for similar books in two dozen other states.  He is presently working on a book on college and university law (Anker Press, forthcoming in 2005).  He has also published academic articles, short stories, and poetry in various publications.  His wife of 35 years, Sylvia, is a statistician; his son, Fernando IV, is an aerospace engineer with the Boeing Company; and, his daughter, Rebecca, studies art history at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.