Connie Perez-Andreesen

Connie Perez-Andreesen is a distinguished certified public accountant who became United Farm Workers controller in 2017. She was appointed by the union’s National Executive Board as the UFW chief administrative officer in 2018. voted national vice president at the UFW constitutional convention in November 2020.

Born in the city of Tulare to Mexican immigrant parents, Connie Perez came from humble beginnings. After many years as a farm worker, her father worked at the Woodville Farm Labor Camp where Connie was raised. She was a product of the Head Start Program and graduated from Monache High School and attended Porterville College. She later attended Bakersfield College and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2000 from California State University, Bakersfield with a B.S. degree in business administration and a focus on accounting. She became a certified public accountant in 2002.

Connie began her career as a staff accountant with a regional accounting firm based in Kern County and rose through the ranks to become one of only two Latinas to make partner in its 40-year history. The firm had substantial experience managing the accounts of major governmental, agricultural and petroleum entities. She assisted other partners in supervising the firm’s multi-million-dollar budget.

She was also appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the State Lottery Commission in 2012 and served as vice-chair and chair of its audit committee that oversaw the commission’s $6.4 billion budget. Connie was the designated representative for Central California. She served as a board member and treasurer of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, promoting business interests across the state’s central region, from Yuba County south to Kern County.

She continues volunteering with an array of non-profit and community organizations. They include appointment by the Bakersfield City Council to the Bakersfield Public Safety/Vital City Services Oversight Committee, board member for Latina Leaders of Kern County, Bakersfield College Foundation, the CSUB President’s Latinx Advisory Council, and past trustee for the Bakersfield Memorial Hospital Foundation. She served on the Supervisory Committee of the Southern California Edison Federal Credit Union and the California Budget & Policy Center. She also served on the California Democratic Party’s Finance Committee.

Connie was honored by the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as Business Woman of the year; by Hispanic Lifestyle as a Latina of Influence; by the National Latina Business Women Association in Los Angeles as a Woman of Excellence; by the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as a “Mujeres del Ano”; and by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants as an Experienced Leader, defined as someone who has advanced to the highest level of leadership.