At 14, Thomas moved with her family from a coastal city in Ecuador to the Salt Lake Valley. She could understand people, but it was difficult to speak English. She used a dictionary to translate William Shakespeare's work for class. And none of her teachers was Latino.

Still, Thomas was determined to master English to get a higher education.

"My reality was I was going to college," she said. "I wasn't going to let anyone predict my reality."

Now, as the new Utah Office of Hispanic-Latino Affairs director, Thomas serves as the state's Latino representative to the Governor's Office. She started her new job March 31. The agency is part of the Utah Office of Ethnic Affairs, which also includes directors for the Asian, Black and Pacific Islander communities. The American Indian office is a separate state division.

Thomas replaces the office's former director, Jesse Soriano, who is now running the ethnic affairs office. Thomas served on the Governor's Hispanic Advisory Council from 2002 to 2007, working with a handful of different Hispanic-Latino office directors.

Palmer DePaulis, the Utah Department of Community and Culture executive director who oversees the ethnic affairs offices, said about 20 people applied for the job and five finalists were interviewed.

DePaulis said Thomas got the post because of her business experience and passion for work in the Latino community. He said he was also impressed with her enthusiasm to identify an issue and figure out a plan to solve the problem.

"She really impressed with her organizational ability," he said. "She seems to be a good self-starter."

DePaulis said he and Thomas agreed on the office's top priorities: expanding the office's visibility and outreach statewide, as well as promoting minority companies and developing business train- ing.

The Latino-Hispanic office has been criticized in the past by some Latino leaders for not being connected to the community. But, Thomas said she plans to change the office's reputation.

Thomas said she has already started meeting with various community groups to introduce herself and her plans for the office. She hopes to visit groups from Logan to St. George to learn about different Latino issues.

The office itself does not provide any services; rather, its goal is to help direct people to assistance and to work with state agencies to reach out to Latinos, Thomas said.

"We should be out in the community," she said. "I don't have all the answers, but I will seek out the different perspectives."

Thomas, 30, graduated from Kearns High School in 1995. She worked as a bank teller through college and later graduated from Westminster College. Her first job was helping small business owners develop company plans and find loan programs.

In 2002, she started working for Overstock.com, where she climbed the ladder to a program manager in charge of about 100 employees within three call centers. She left in 2005.

Since then, she had been working as a real estate agent and started a business consulting company until she started her new job a month ago.

For now, Thomas said she is busy getting organized and setting up meetings. She is also in the middle of filling about 10 vacancies on the Hispanic-Latino council. She hopes to move the council meetings out into the community to get more Latinos working together.

jsanchez@sltrib.com