Salt Lake Community College advisor Héctor E. Cando was chosen by the National Association of Academic Advisors (NACADA) to receive its Outstanding Advising Certificate of Merit in the Academic Advising—Primary Role category.

The award is given to advisors who demonstrate qualities associated with outstanding academic advising of students and whose role at their institutions are the direct delivery of advising to students. Cando will receive the award this fall at NACADA’s annual conference in Atlanta.

NACADA has been honoring advisors since 1983, and its membership has grown to more than 10,000 faculty members, professional advisors, administrators, counselors and others in academic and student affairs. NACADA is the representative and advocate of academic advising and those providing that service with the higher education community.

Cando speaks Spanish, Italian and English and has been at SLCC for seven years. Prior to that he worked five years for the Salt Lake Tooele Applied Technology College. He moved with his family from Quito, Ecuador when he was 11. He graduated from BYU with a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Health and from Utah State University with a Master’s in Special Education and Counseling. For five years he was appointed by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to the Hispanic Advisory Council, chairing the council for one year while also advocating on behalf of Utah’s Hispanic population. Cando has also worked for the Utah State Office of Rehabilitation Services in charge of the migrant and seasonal farmworker program.

Salt Lake Community College is an accredited, student-focused, comprehensive community college meeting the diverse needs of the Salt Lake community. Home to more than 61,000 students each year, the College is Utah’s leading provider of workforce development programs. SLCC is also the largest supplier of transfer students to Utah’s four-year institutions and a perennial Top 10 college nationally for total associate degrees awarded. The College is the sole provider of applied technology courses in the Salt Lake area, with multiple locations, an eCampus, and nearly 1,000 continuing education sites located throughout the Salt Lake Valley. Personal attention from an excellent faculty is paramount at the College, which maintains an average class size of 20.