Hispanic Heritage Month Spotlight: Troy Blackwell

hi everyone happy Hispanic Heritage Month my name is Troy Blackwell and I am the deputy chief Communications officer at the US Department of Commerce patent and trademark office commonly known as the USPTO we help innovators and entrepreneurs legally protect their work and I've been here at the agency for a little less than a year for me I celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month surrounded by family and friends these are things that I do throughout the year but definitely during Hispanic heritage month it's important for us to make sure that the young ones in our family uh our children our nieces our nephews our cousins are embracing to the culture so for me that's supporting small businesses uh that are primarily Hispanic owned supporting Hispanic entrepreneurs through the work that we are doing at the patent and trademark office including opening new Resource Centers at libraries at Hispanic serving institutions that has taking the children of my family to Musical and art shows embracing them in the culture uh that has gone on for Generations in our family for me a personal model that I live by is that life will give you many commas but not a lot of periods and for me that really symbolizes that there are challenges in life whether there are personal or professional challenges but it's meant to be a comma in your story it's not a period it's not the end so despite things being hard today uh the sentence the work the the the will will continue to go on in the future so that's a really important quote uh for me and I hope that you all enjoy a happy Hispanic Heritage Month thank you