"As a lost first year at UC San Diego, I joined the fellowship program under the Associated Students student government. Ace Antonio, one of the advisors of AS's Office of Concert and Events, became a valued mentor with his breadth of knowledge in the events industry, as well as his ability to connect and value relationships and partnerships. Through my 3 years at UCSD and as part of ASCE, Ace's guidance led me from a fellow, to an event coordinator, to the Marketing Director. I am now an Event Operations Coordinator for a destination management company in Las Vegas, NV, and confident in my live event abilities because of Ace's impact."

"The fact that we were organized, that's where we're getting compliments on. It was like, 'Wow, you're on top of it. We didn't know we needed to reach out to the fire marshal. You already have a plan for security. You wanted to do fencing.' Everyone was impressed. The things that they would have implemented very last minute from other things that happened on this campus — they said, 'Y'all were ahead of it.'"

"Ace has a rare ability to make you genuinely believe in yourself by helping you recognize what you're already capable of. Whether I was working through a tough marketing plan, career decision, or figuring out how to balance ambition with reality, he always made space for that conversation while pushing me to trust my instincts and take up space."

"Everyone felt informed. It was streamlined. We had a lot of compliments from campus stakeholders: 'You guys put on a big event and we didn't have any issues — communication was great.' And now there's talks about, do we do this again? Does this become the annual thing?"

"Things went a lot smoother than I ever could have anticipated they would have. And I really have to say a lot of that was because of the support we got from you. All of the checklists that you gave us — just having that toolbox of documents that we could use as a skeleton to work with — made things so much easier."

"Having that extra person that is an expert on the things that we are not experts on was really, really helpful... there are definitely things that would have fallen through the cracks if we didn't have you there, kind of coaching us through it."

"Working alongside Ace completely changed how I thought about navigating the music and events industry, especially as someone stepping into that world for the first time. His advising style was never prescriptive, he asked the right questions and trusted me to find my own answers, which built a kind of confidence you can't get from a textbook.”

“That self-belief he helped me build didn't just shape my time as a student, it's something I carry into every room I walk into, professionally and in life."