On the Saturday morning in May when they met for coffee on a sunny patio in Albuquerque, sisters Christina O’Connell (’96 BSN, ’21 DNP) and Gabriella Blakey (’06 MA, ’13 EDD) had seen the welcome news from the state’s health department: 55 percent of New Mexicans were now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Cases had dropped to just over 100 and hospitalizations were plummeting.

New Mexico was heading for herd immunity and it looked like coronavirus might be on the run.

For O’Connell and Blakey, vaccination progress was personal. The native New Mexicans — who grew up with the surname Duran in a family of Lobos — had both contracted COVID-19 and had nursed their mother through a serious bout of the novel coronavirus. But more than that, they had each played a pivotal role in getting their fellow New Mexicans vaccinated.

Before the pandemic struck, O’Connell, who managed the UNM Hospitals Southeast Heights Clinic, was preparing for flu season. When the pandemic hit, her focus shifted to instituting COVID-safe practices at the clinic.

Blakey, then an associate superintendent for the Albuquerque Public Schools, was overseeing the schools in the Southeast Heights. When COVID arrived in New Mexico, she moved deep into the logistics of moving the state’s largest school system from in-person to virtual education while keeping students, staff and school properties safe.

She was promoted to interim chief operating officer for the district in July, and began working with the City of Albuquerque’s Emergency Management Department and the New Mexico Department of Health in anticipation of COVID vaccines becoming available. APS became a partner in community-wide vaccination, offering empty schools as vaccination sites.

“I’ve always thought of education in terms of community,” Blakey says, “so partnering to help the community made perfect sense to me.”

In December 2020, O’Connell was also asked if she would take on additional duties. Could she manage the rollout of UNM’s vaccination effort once vaccines were approved and available?

O’Connell jumped at the chance.

“I think I felt very helpless at the time with the pandemic and was wondering how I could help,” she says.

Blakey’s first vaccination site opened on New Year’s Eve at Albuquerque High School with school nurses administering vaccines to medical personnel and first responders.

“It was pretty emotional,” Blakey says. “Schools being closed, it being New Year’s Eve and to see the actual vaccination for the first time, it was this overwhelming feeling of hope.”

As it turned out, there were four vaccine doses left over at the end of the night, and Blakey was chosen to receive her shot.

O’Connell opened what would become one of the busiest vaccination centers in the state in a few weeks later in January, moving thousands of people through the iconic Pit concourse every week and eventually administering 100,000 vaccines.

O’Connell was nervous the day the site opened, but those nerves dissolved as hundreds of people showed up and the lines moved quickly.

“It snowed the first day, so that was a little chaotic, but it was the most positive vibe. This excitement, energy, hope, people in tears. It turned out to be much more of a project than I expected,” O’Connell says, “but also probably the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. People were so grateful. And that was something I personally needed at the time, just to be in a positive place.”

O’Connell, 47, and Blakey, 45, who grew up in the Southeast Heights in the Hispanic/Italian Duran family, dived into their roles with a zeal borne of personal experience.

“For us,” O’Connell says, “there was a real personal drive to help with vaccines.”

Their mother contracted COVID while recovering from an automobile accident in a rehabilitation facility. Blakey and O’Connell cared for her when she was discharged and they also both contracted the virus, although with less severe cases than their mother.

When the Pit clinic opened, O’Connell and Blakey found themselves in meetings together and talking to each other on the phone every day.

Finding themselves in this strange convergence, was odd and completely unexpected for the sisters.

“I remember pretty early on saying, ‘Who would have thought that our careers would have converged around vaccinations?’” O’Connell says.

A lot of people found themselves stretched to the max during the pandemic ­— juggling working from home with managing children’s at-home school, maybe taking care of a sick relative and dealing with the challenges of isolation. O’Connell and Blakey can relate. In addition to both being ill themselves and caring for their mother, who was hospitalized twice for COVID, the women ran their households, hosted virtual holiday celebrations and held down their regular jobs. Neither got a break from their already full-time professional responsibilities while they took on the vaccine; in fact, both were promoted to even more challenging roles — O’Connell as executive director of Ambulatory Primary Care Services for UNMH and Blakey as COO for APS.  But pitching in to help community is a family value taught by their parents to Christina, Gabriella and their brother John (’00 BA), an attorney.

Their mother, Maria Duran, is a nurse who ran school-based health programs through the UNM School of Medicine before she retired. Their dad, Don Duran (’03 EdD), was a longtime APS principal who also served on the school board.

“Growing up, we were raised with this sense of being helpful and a real sense of social justice,” O’Connell says. “This experience completely spoke to that and it was just so special that we were able to share it. Our parents are so proud of us.”

One morning, O’Connell was driving to work at the Pit when she found herself crying. “It just hit me that this inspiring thing was part of my job and that people were getting this hope.” Blakey agrees.

“It was a very rewarding experience during a time when everything was dark,” she says.

All About Community: From ska beats to cookie batter, Alumni Association President Mike Silva keeps it real

A snapshot of Michael Silva’s life before age 8: Violence on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Chaos at home. A fearless little man fighting to survive a tumultuous and violent childhood.

Michael after age 8 when his mother snatched up her three kids (with a fourth on the way) and moved to Albuquerque to start fresh: With space and calm, the angry kid begins to relax. He finds the saxophone in band class and a passion is sparked. People come into his life who are helpful and kind. From his house in the Kirtland, he can see The Pit and University Stadium. He begins to dream of going to college, specifically UNM.

The Central Avenue location of Rude Boy Cookies, Silva’s business for the past seven years, is not yet open as Silva (’95 BA) sits in a comfortable booth and reflects on the course his life has taken, the “then” and “now” that seem entire worlds apart.

But as Silva reaches new heights – two successful businesses, a stable, loving family, a circle of friends and accolades and awards from his community – he is reminded that everything he is today has roots in that scrappy, damaged kid from L.A.

“My childhood was pretty hardcore. There was a lot of loss, there was quite a bit of trauma,” he says. “As an adult now I’m finding that I’m still processing some of that stuff and dealing with it. But it’s work that I’m fully engaged in, I’m active in and I’m committed to because now I’m a father.”

The incoming president of the UNM Alumni Association chokes up when he thinks about that kid who is still inside him.

“It’s heavy and it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t matter how successful you are. It doesn’t matter how much community equity you have,” Silva says. “If you don’t deal with that stuff, it never goes away, it always comes back. So, because of all of the loss and the abandonment that void in me is filled by tremendous amounts and love and grace and kindness.”

Silva first picked up the accordion as a kid in L.A., but it was the saxophone that hooked him on music.

By the time he landed at Del Norte High School as a freshman, he was an accomplished musician. “That was my life,” Silva says. “I was laser focused. That’s all I cared about. It became my direction. It became my path.”

When he neared graduation, he targeted UNM and a degree in music. “I grew up in the shadow of the University. My love of the University began to grow at a very young age and I knew I wanted to go to UNM.”

His first semesters were tough. He wasn’t clicking with his classes. His study habits weren’t cutting it. He struggled to afford tuition and living expenses. And scheduling an 8 a.m. math class didn’t help.

He was teetering on the edge of dropping out when he decided to try a different major as a sophomore and see if his interest in history and politics might help him find a focus.

He switched majors to political science and began to excel.

“I had some unbelievable professors who helped me, pushed me, guided me. I had Fred Harris for several classes. He was very impactful.”

Still, performing on a stage with a band held a powerful sway. Silva put law school on hold (becoming the next junior senator from New Mexico could wait) and pursued music. He played sax and drums in Cool Runnings, a 10-piece reggae band, and in Giant Steps, a seven-piece ska band that had regional success, cut a few albums and toured with some national acts.

When it came time to get to down to more traditional work, Silva went into hospitality and sales. Getting fired from a sales job persuaded him to become his own boss and he and fellow Lobo Jesse Herron (‘03 BBA, ’05 MBA) hatched the plan for ABQ Trolley Co. in 2007 over chips, salsa and five hours of conversation at a Taco Cabana.

Once their custom-made trolley was delivered in 2009, they launched the tour company, switching off driving and microphone duties, and grew the company into what it is today – Albuquerque Tourism and Sightseeing Factory, an umbrella for the four divisions of the company: trolley tours (which include the wildly popular Breaking Bad tour), a walking ghost tour, a party bike business and ABQ in a Box, a gift company.

For his next entrepreneurial venture, Silva looked to two of his passions – ska and reggae music and cookies.

Ska music, which originated in Jamaica and shares an offbeat with reggae, has an inclusive ethos (its early “two-tone” bands were racially integrated) and an upbeat energy and message.

Two-tone fashion is a black-and-white checkerboard and when Silva played in ska bands he wore the sharp black-and-white ska uniform favored by Rude Boys, the fervent ska fanatics – a neat black suit, white shirts and black skinny tie and sharp shoes.

“My life is ruled by checkerboard. It’s everywhere and in every aspect of everything I do,” Silva says. In 2014, Silva wanted to start another business. There was no cookie bakery in Albuquerque at the time, so he decided to launch one with a former co-worker, Kristin Dowling, a dedicated baker who had a culinary degree from CNM.

They opened Rude Boy Cookies in 2015 with the intent of satisfying sweet tooths and also engaging with and supporting Albuquerque.

“To me, there’s much more to life than the bottom line,” Silva says. “I want to be successful. But there’s more important things than just making a buck.”

Silva, whose 23 and Me results show is 60 percent Black and 30 percent Spanish, was traumatized and then galvanized by George Floyd’s murder under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. With members of his circle of brothers, a group of Black professionals in Albuquerque, he helped to organize a silent protest at Civic Plaza, and another along Central Avenue. They formed BURQUE Against Racism and Silva is committed to helping the less fortunate and, in his words, “lifting up all Black lives in Albuquerque.”

“I am going to stand up for what’s right and I’m outspoken about it,” he says. “I’ve maybe lost business because of it but I can look at myself in the mirror every single day and know that I’m doing the right thing.”

Silva is honored to serve as president of the UNM Alumni Association and he wants to use his year as the head of the board to help build pride and connection to an institution that lifted his family and changed his life.

After arriving in Albuquerque, his mother, Martha Washington (’84 BA, ’87 JD, ’94 MA) began attending UNM and was an academic advisor for athletics and then a student in the School of Law while Silva was an undergraduate.

“The University became a huge part of me,” Silva says. And it helped lift us up. I bleed Cherry and Silver with a little tinge of checkerboard.”

The goal for this year is engage active students to build excitement and a loyalty to UNM so that they become alumni with a strong connection to the Alumni Association.

Silva hopes to make a whistle-stop tour across campus to engage with undergrads in all majors and to build something like a Big Brother/Big Sister mentor network between alumni and at-risk students.

The Alumni Association, Silva says, is the school’s front porch. “Every alum is an ambassador to the University and it’s our job to engage people. To me it’s about asking people to be great ambassadors by speaking, by sharing the love of the place.”

Quick takes

His favorite cookie: Chocolate chip, forever.

Top three tracks on his all-time playlist: “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley; “Ghost Town” by the Specials; “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire.

Family: Wife Penimah Silva (’11 BA) , office administrator at the Keleher & McLeod law firm; daughter Ariella, 8.

How he spends a day off: It’s all about his family and his back yard, which got some major love during the pandemic.

Life-changing moment: When he was 18, Silva was hired as a baseball and basketball coach at Camp Greylock, a storied sleepaway camp in Becket, Mass., and found a mentor there, camp director Bert Margolis, who would change his life. Silva returned for the next 13 summers and became head counselor.

“Bert Margolis became the first true father figure I ever had in my life. He stuck around, seemed to care, taught me the life lessons I still live by.”

About that Rude Boy name: “Fans of ska music are called Rude Boys. A Rude Boy is somebody who shows up at a ska show, dressed in a really nice suit, with a skinny black tie, really slick shoes and a pork pie hat.”