Gustavo Aguirre Jr

Gustavo Aguirre Jr. is the Director of Climate Equity and Environmental Justice at the Central California Asthma Collaborative. Gustavo joined CCAC in 2023 after being the Kern County Director at the Central California Environmental Justice Network for nearly a decade.

Gustavo is a California native whose activist roots go back to his early childhood years and continued well into high school and beyond to the present day. Like many first-generation Mexican Americans, his parents were farm workers who traveled from the California coast to the California desert following the seasonal crops. Gustavo fully engaged in grassroots community organizing and social justice in 2006 as a senior at Foothill High School in East Bakersfield, from there his passion for justice only grew. He helped organize a walkout in solidarity with high school students nationwide protesting aggressive immigration laws. While with CCEJN, Gustavo coordinated the ‘IVAN’ Community-based Reporting Network in Kern County and conducted environmental literacy workshops along with community science data-gathering projects.

Gustavo has participated in various state panels including California Air Resources Board- Office of Community Air Protections – AB 617 Consultation Group, Department of Conservations SB 83- Underground Injection Control review panel, and The Department of Pesticides Regulations (DPR), Community Engagement Framework Development work with the California Agricultural Commissioners Departments. Gustavo also carries nearly a decade of experience in developing and deploying community air monitoring networks in environmental justice communities, co-founding community groups such as the Lost Hills Action Committee.