The CVHEC Story

(MAY 20, 2026) — Once considered one of the region’s “best kept secrets,” the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium publicly releases in this issue its new informational video, “The CVHEC Story,” a 16-minute mini-documentary tracing the consortium’s origins, evolution and growing impact on higher education collaboration throughout Central California.

The film was premiered during a private showing at the 2026 Central Valley Higher Education Summit April 24 in Fresno before an audience of higher education leaders, educators, workforce partners and policymakers. 

The consortium, as it begins preparing for its 25th anniversary next year, is now making the video available publicly through its website, e-newsletter and social media platforms, announced Dr. Benjamín Durán, CVHEC executive director.

“This video is part of a broader CVHEC communications strategy designed to elevate awareness of its 28 member institutions of higher education and their regional and statewide work as a consortium,” Duran said when he introduced the video at the summit. 

“It portrays a historical depiction of the consortium’s origin and progress to date and offers viewers both an institutional history and a reminder of the collaborative spirit that has driven Central Valley higher ed leaders, sitting as the CVHEC Board of Directors, for more than two decades.”

Produced by Zach Green Films in collaboration with CVHEC Communications/Media Relations Lead Tom Uribes and Associate Director Ángel Ramírez, the documentary combines archival history, interviews and student-centered storytelling to illustrate the consortium’s role in expanding educational opportunity and workforce alignment across the region since its founding in 1998 and incorporation as a state non-profit in 2002.

In addition to Duran, president-emeritus of Merced College who has been with the organization since its founding when he represented MC on the board then after retirement when he became CVHEC’s executive director in 2016, the documentary features commentary from several influential figures in California higher education. 

They include CVHEC’s  founding architects: Dr. John Welty, president-emeritus of California State University, Fresno, and Dr. Allen Carden, the consortium’s founding executive director; as well as former CVHEC board members Dr. Sonya Christian, current chancellor of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office and former chancellor of the Kern Community College District, and Dr. Kristin Clark, chancellor-emerita of the West Hills Community College District and former CVHEC board chair who is now a consultant for the consortium leading its work around data and artificial intelligence.

The full video also includes reflections from current and former board members, educators, and students who benefited from programs and services supported by the consortium and team members including Ramírez who started with CVHEC in 2015 as a Fresno State student intern from the Media Communications and Journalism Department.

“I’m the kind of student that CVHEC was created to advocate for,” Ramirez says in the video. “I’m a first generation Latino raised with a single mom from the rural area — I came from the area of San Joaquin. I can see the effect that the programs that we’re implementing have on students like me.”

During his introduction to the premiere screening at the summit, Durán reflected on CVHEC’s early years and the organization’s gradual emergence from relative obscurity into a nationally recognized collaborative model.

“For a long time, we were the Central Valley’s best-kept secret,” Durán told summit attendees. “We were doing important work — real, meaningful work — but we weren’t always great at telling the world about it.”

He noted in his director’s message for this month’s newsletter that a “highlight of the video that provided some nostalgic appreciation was commentary from our founders — President-emeritus Welty and Dr. Carden.”

Welty encourages the valley’s CEOs to nourish CVHEC for the benefit of college students in the region.

“Students in the Central Valley have really benefited and I think CVHEC is really positioned to do even more,” said Welty who retired in 2013 after 22 years as Fresno State’s seventh president. “To current presidents and future presidents, keep it alive. Keep looking at how you can work together because higher education needs to play a major role in the future of Central California.”

As the consortium expanded in both size and influence, Durán said partners and funders repeatedly encouraged the organization to strengthen its public messaging and visibility.

“Telling your story is how you attract the funding, the partners and the resources that students in this valley deserve,” he said.  

That realization led CVHEC to invest more intentionally in communications and storytelling efforts over the past decade Durán said. He credited Ramírez and Uribes for helping transform the organization’s public presence and amplifying awareness of its work across California and beyond.

“What you are about to see is the result of their work — and I could not be more proud of it,” Durán told summit attendees before the screening. “The CVHEC story can finally be told the way it deserves to be told.”

He recounted that this storytelling mission started with the hiring of Ramírez as a student intern. 

“Eleven years later, Angel’s our associate director and, frankly, he runs the place.”

Durán also singled out Uribes at the summit, a longtime Fresno State communications professional who joined CVHEC in 2020 after a 30-year public affairs career at the university.

“Tom has done a fabulous job growing our monthly newsletter, elevating CVHEC’s voice across the state, and our name is starting to pop up in conversations across the country,” Durán said.

Uribes brought decades of journalism and higher education communications experience to the consortium. A Fresno State journalism alumnus and former correspondent for The Fresno Bee, Uribes served for 20 years as Fresno State’s public information officer and worked under three university presidents: the late Dr. Harold Haak, Welty and the late Joseph I. Castro prior to Castro’s CSU chancellorship.

At CVHEC, Uribes oversees strategic communications initiatives, newsletter content and production, media relations, and collaborative media projects involving the consortium’s 28 member institutions. He also chairs the CVHEC Public Information Officers/Communicators Committee made up of the communications officers of each consortium member.

The documentary itself became a preservation project as much as a communications effort, according to Durán, who noted that documenting the consortium’s history presented challenges because many early records were limited or scattered.

“Because we were the best-kept secret for so long, there weren’t a lot of records from our early years,” Durán said at the summit screening. “But there were some. And a few of us old-timers are still around to fill in the gaps.”

He said the completed film now serves both as a historical archive and a forward-looking statement about the consortium’s future mission. The video package by Zach Green Films includes a shorter 5-minute version that Duran said will be used to onboard new board members. 

Based in Visalia, the production company has provided video storytelling services for over 100 Valley organizations and businesses since 2014 such as Self-Help Enterprises, ProYouth, the Statewide Residency Technical Assistance Center (SRTAC), the Tulare County Office of Education and the Kings County Office of Education.

A valley native, Zach Green is the company founder and lead producer who said his experience with this story was an “eye-opener” about higher education in the valley and his own education.

“Filming with CVHEC was a great experience and an eye-opener for how the higher education institutions collaborate and partner across the valley,” Green said. “As a native of the valley I even learned that some of the initiatives that CVHEC has championed affected my own life and college-going experience. Bringing together the big picture was a fun challenge for us and CVHEC was a great partner in creating this documentary.”

Founded in 2002, CVHEC is a regional higher education partnership composed of universities, community colleges and working collaboratively with partner organizations locally, regionally and nationally as well as with K-12 districts to improve educational attainment, workforce preparation and economic mobility throughout California’s Central Valley. Over the past two decades, the consortium has become known for initiatives involving dual enrollment, transfer pathways, workforce alignment, college access, regional education and collaboration, and legislation.

The CVHEC Board of Directors is made up of the chancellors, presidents and campus directors of the consortium member institutions who become board members once they are appointed as head of their respective entity. Duran and Ramirez meet with them for CVHEC board orientation and their role on this unique body of higher ed leaders.

Duran said with this public release of “The CVHEC Story,” the board hopes the documentary will help broaden awareness of both the region’s educational challenges and the collaborative solutions being developed to address them.