Esmeralda Montenegro Owen is Executive Director for Youth Orchestra Salinas (YOSAL). Previously, she was Director of Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations for Hartnell Community College District in Salinas, California.
She has also held positions at the National Steinbeck Center, the Girl Scouts of the Central Coast, and taught journalism at Gavilan College in Gilroy, California.
She was nominated for an Emmy Award as a news anchor and producer at Univision 67 in Monterey, California. She got her first break in broadcast journalism with Univision 21 in Fresno, California, and moved on to Telemundo 48 in San Jose as a news reporter.
Her life took a major change in 1993, when she became Miss El Salvador L.A.