In 2021, Alvaro Olivar-Fernandez made the trek across the Atlantic from Madrid, Spain, all the way to Yankton to play soccer for Mount Marty University.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s now graduated with a degree in business administration, has an internship with the City of Yankton under his belt and has worked in the finance department at the city for the past year.<\/p>\n
Olivar-Fernandez will be heading back to Madrid as soon as his visa is expiring, but he\u2019s taking with him several great memories from his time in Yankton.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard participated in a soccer showcase in Mexico earlier in 2021, and that\u2019s where he met a soccer coach from Mount Marty University.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made contact and Yankton seemed appealing to me,\u201d he told the Press & Dakotan. \u201cI also had another teammate from Spain who was coming with me, so we made it over here. He ended up leaving early, but that\u2019s when it all started for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivar-Fernandez said he\u2019s grateful for the opportunity that his soccer skills gave him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been playing soccer since very young age, and it\u2019s been great as far as giving me other opportunities by coming to college in the United States,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a new arrival, and in keeping with tradition of most 18-year-olds, Olivar-Fernandez wasn\u2019t sure what he wanted to do after high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went with what I thought I was better at \u2014 business administration,\u201d he said. \u201cI chose the concentration of banking and finance, and it\u2019s been through professors like Charlie Gross, like Dave Spencer and Terry Stull, that have kind of made me want to pursue a career in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Gross who first lined him up with an internship at the City.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlvaro\u2019s a really good student,\u201d Gross said. \u201cMore than that, though, when he got ready to do his internship, I went downtown, talked to City Hall and they had an opening for him. He did so well during his internship that they hired him. That speaks volumes, to me, about his work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivar-Fernandez reflected on his first internship when he was assigned an assortment of projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started my first internship in the summer of 2024,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a great summer. I had the opportunity to do a little bit of everything the city does. I then came back as an intern the following January (he had to play soccer that fall) and that was similar to the first internship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked a lot more with finance with Lisa (Yardley) being my leader. Then, toward the end of that internship, the opportunity came up to stay as a full-time employee, and it\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worked out for Yardley and the Finance Department, as well, especially when it came to a huge utility software conversion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlvaro was a really good fit,\u201d she told the Press & Dakotan. \u201cHe did a lot of cleanup stuff for the finance office, and the utilities account specialist position came open. I encouraged him to apply with our office, and it worked out really well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to give him a lot of credit, because 2025 was not easy for our office, because we did a huge utility management conversion. We hadn\u2019t updated our software in over 30 years on our side. Alvaro did very well \u2014 learning the old software in six months, and then right away, turned around and learned the new software. He has brought a lot of value to our office and helping our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivar-Fernandez would have liked to stay a little longer, as he has grown fond of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously sad to have to say goodbye, mainly because of the relationships, all the people I\u2019ve met and everything about Yankton,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m also excited to see family again, too, and just look at other opportunities over there. I definitely would like to come back, though. Maybe 2-3 years down the line, I\u2019d certainly consider that an option.\u201d<\/p>\n
Considering that he came here from a city with a population over 3.5 million, what other aspects of Yankton did Olivar-Fernandez enjoy?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI like how peaceful it is compared to where I come from,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot less noisy. For how small of a community it is, it\u2019s been very welcoming, and I\u2019ve always felt well-treated in the community. I\u2019ve met numerous people and I will keep contact with those who have become very important to me. And that\u2019s a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said he\u2019s going to miss his co-workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built quite the team over the last year,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of them have been great to me. They\u2019ve helped me improve in my job and in other areas, too. We have a great bond and a great relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very thankful to the people here at the City and everybody else that helped make my experience in Yankton as great as it has been,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yardley said the finance department will miss his presence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a well-rounded young kid, so we\u2019re really going to miss him,\u201d she said. \u201cThe City Commission did allow us to try to apply and start the H1b visa process. We put in for the lottery, and he just wasn\u2019t selected. That tied our hands with moving to that next step.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s more than welcome to come back to the City of Yankton. We did understand at that time, a year ago, when we hired him, we may only have him for a year. Internally, we thought, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s take our chance.\u2019 I think it was well worth it. I could say that I\u2019ve learned a lot from him as well. One thing I kind of learned from him is to find the humor in everything and that things will probably work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
His professor laments the rules that are forcing Olivar-Fernandez back to Spain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed that we can\u2019t find a way to keep him in this country,\u201d Gross said. \u201cIt\u2019s just unfortunate. He\u2019s a great kid who is doing so well and helping our community. Alvaro was even my dog walker. When I was out of town, he had a key to the house and always found time to get away at lunchtime to walk my dog. He\u2019s just a special person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2021, Alvaro Olivar-Fernandez made the trek across the Atlantic from Madrid, Spain, all the way to Yankton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7070,17],"class_list":["post-11630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-community","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}