Custodian Diana Contreras considers De Anza students, staff and faculty to be family: a key reason, she says, that she enjoys her work and takes pride in doing her job. She is being honored as Employee of the Month for February.

Contreras joined De Anza as a permanent employee in November 2005 after working as a temporary employee at both Foothill and De Anza since August 2002, as well as from 1988 to 1992 in both colleges' food services groups and Foothill's EOPS and Facilities contract offices before working in the private sector. Contreras has been been responsible at different times for the upkeep of the Learning Center, Science Center and the Student and Community Services Building.

"Diana takes pride in what she does and can always be seen maintaining campus facilities and exhausting every available option to do so," said her nominator, Dean of Counseling Howard Irvin.

"I enjoy coming to work and doing my job because of the people I work with, especially my manager, Manny Mendoza, and the people I meet in the performance of my job," said Contreras.

Contreras was born and raised in Guam, where she graduated from George Washington High School. She worked for the Internal Revenue Service in Guam for 8 years before relocating to California, spending two year in Hawaii along the way. Contreras has attended Foothill College, taking mostly accounting and other business courses.