Raul López serves as a board member at the Beacon Center of Tennessee. Raul was born in Havana, Cuba in 1962. At the age of five, he and his family escaped Communism and found a new life in the United States of America. He attended two years of community college and two years of Bible college. Raul married his lovely wife, Julie, in 1992. Together they have six children, including two children adopted from Bogotá, Colombia.
In 2006, after more than a decade of being a small business owner, Raul was called to full-time prison ministry at Men of Valor, where he managed the Aftercare/Re-Entry and Family Ministry outreach program for eight years. In 2014, Raul was appointed to be the Executive Director of Men of Valor after the sudden passing of its founder, Carl Carlson.
Raul has chaired and served on many boards, and has always been involved in politics. He was an alternate delegate for the George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign and served as Minority Communications Director for the Tennessee GOP. He also worked as the Tennessee Hispanic Outreach Coordinator for Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, as well as the Middle Tennessee Chairman for the Marco Rubio presidential campaign in 2016. Raul has started two PACs and has served on the board of a third PAC.
Raul is also active in the Latino community. Over the years he has been involved in both the Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Tennessee Latin American Chamber of Commerce, as well as his local church and various Conservative causes. He also helped found and host two local television programs, Qué Pasa Nashville and Spanish TV, both of which are dedicated to the opportunities and challenges facing the Hispanic community in Middle Tennessee.
Raul is also the Founder and Executive Director of Latinos for Tennessee. His vision and commitment to the cause of Latinos for Tennessee have been invaluable in bringing the organization to the place it is today.
Most recently, Raul has been focusing his efforts on building a new non-profit organization: Hispanic Organization of Leaders and Achievers (HOLA). Raul is a co-founder of HOLA and serves as the organization’s Executive Director.