Wolfson Campus School Of Business Chair Retires After 31 Years At MDC

Ana Margarita Cruz believes real-world experience is an invaluable tool.

After working in accounting, management, retailing and manufacturing for 15 years, she wanted to give teaching a try. 

So she became an adjunct professor in the business department at North Campus in January of 1991. That is where she discovered her passion for working with students and integrating her business prowess into the classroom.

“It was very meaningful to communicate that knowledge to students to make them see that they have to push a little further to get to where they want,” she recalls.

Cruz enjoyed teaching so much that she left the business industry in 1993 and began a 13-year stint as a full-time professor at Wolfson Campus, eventually becoming chair of her department. 

Nearly three decades later, the 69-year-old is reflecting on her legacy at Miami Dade College. 

Cruz retired as the chair of Wolfson Campus’ School of Global Business in December. 

Born in Havana, Cruz immigrated to the United States with her late parents, Manuel and Amparo Cruz, when she was 12 years old, fleeing the island’s communist regime.

After graduating from Miami Springs Senior High School in 1972, she enrolled at North Campus to study business, attaining her associate’s degree in 1974. 

Two years later, Cruz earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Florida International University.

In 1977, she started a five-year run as a field examiner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where she audited corporate income tax returns; she also became a certified public accountant. 

Cruz then began working in the private industry for approximately 10 years, first serving as an accounting manager in companies such as Transocean, a drilling company, and Equinox, a retail and manufacturing company, and later as a controller/vice president of finance at Telus, a long-distance calling telephone company. 

Seeking to advance her career, she enrolled at St. Thomas University, where she earned a master’s degree in business administration in 1985. Eighteen years later, Cruz earned a doctorate in business administration from Nova Southeastern University.

One year after starting at North Campus, she used her expertise to launch a branch of the IRS’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, an initiative that offers tax preparation services to the community. 

The program’s success led to its expansion to the Wolfson, Kendall, Eduardo J Padrón, Homestead and Hialeah campuses. 

Cruz, who served as the college-wide director of VITA, incorporated the TAX 2000 course into the program, allowing students to practice filing income tax returns in a real-world setting. 

She also launched the Small Business Education Program—an initiative funded by the Citi Foundation that helps small businesses with workshops and expositions offered in English and Spanish.

“I’m a little unique in the sense that I add more responsibility than the job requires,” said Cruz with a light-hearted laugh. “That motivated me; it challenged me to do better.”

From 1993 to 1997, she served as co-advisor to the Phi Beta Lambda Future Business Leaders of America chapter at Wolfson Campus. 

The two-time endowed teaching chair—1996 and 2002—-was also a co-organizer of Students Helping Students, a program that allowed business scholars to teach English as a Second Language students about marketing and management.

Additionally, Cruz led the Up Close and Personal with Community Leaders breakfast speaker series with the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. The program, which lasted approximately three years, allowed accounting and computer students to learn from industry leaders. 

But Cruz’s influence goes beyond students.  

Mirna Archaga, who is now an office specialist for the media services department at Wolfson Campus, says Cruz encouraged her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in supervision and management, allowing her to be promoted from her previous role as a technician. 

“[She helped me] believe in myself and [believe] that I could accomplish the bachelor’s that I always said [was] too hard for me,” Archaga said. “She [would] say, ‘If I can do it, you can do it.’”

In 2005, Cruz was selected as Florida’s Professor of the Year. One year later, she received Miami Today’s Bronze Medal Award for professional achievement. 

During retirement, Cruz plans to travel, participate in a private book club in Coral Gables and continue revising Fundamentals of Taxation, a finance book she co-authored in 2007. 

“Her legacy is indisputable, she has the complete package,” said Jeanette Campos, a program coordinator for the supervision and management bachelor’s program at Wolfson Campus, who credits Cruz with helping her land her first job at the College. “She was always proactive…she always needed to be involved in something.”

Click here to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, The Hammerhead. For news tips, contact us at mdc.thereporter@gmail.com.