I am 24 25 years old and was born, raised and currently live in Houston, Texas. Growing up, I was always told, “Hector, if you want to make a great life for yourself, go to school, get good grades, and you will surely find a great job that will pay you lots of money”, so I did.

For the next 9 years of my life, I completely devoted myself to my academics. By the time I graduated high school I had achieved some pretty significant milestones in my life. I had professional work experience with a major energy corporation in Houston; Reliant Energy, and NASA. Additionally, I was founding President of a non-profit Technology based alumni organization and played a key role in a “perseverance in the community” documentary titled Breaking-Through. Some important community figures took notice at what I had accomplished at such a young age that Houston’s major newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, wrote a front-page article about my story, Hector Avellaneda’s New Home, and admittance into one of the top Research Institutions in the country – Texas A&M.

Having a newspaper article written on my accomplishments was a huge morale booster for me. In college, I worked even harder! I received some scholarships and grants, not enough to pay all the way through college but I was determined to make it work. I decided to dedicate myself 100% to being a student and building lasting relationships. There was not enough time in one day and if was going to get the grades I needed to land that “perfect job” after graduation, work was simply not an option. I would take out student loans and take every credit card opportunity that came my way to pay the rest of my way through college for the next 4 years.

I graduated from Texas A&M University in late 2008 earning my degree in Technology Management/Business. The office of The President of the United States invited me to the White House in early 2009 to represent our Technology organization at a Social Innovations Event. It was a great honor to have been invited to our nation’s capital and being a guest at the White House, surrounded by important political leaders was an amazing experience in itself. All my hard work and efforts over the last 4 years were finally paying off, or so I thought.

Although I had reached yet another great milestone in my life, I graduated from college at a worst time possible! Our country was in a deep recession and corporate America had hiring freezes across the board. Not only did I not have a job upon graduation, I had no savings and accumulated $45,000 in student loan and credit card debt and the repayment bills started coming. It was a very disheartening situation that got worse before it got any better. My dreams of obtaining the dream job that would allow me to live my dream lifestyle were fundamentally challenged!

After almost a complete year of frustration and job-hunting, in November of 2009 I found a full-time job with a major technology services company as a software program manager. It was a good job with decent pay, but heck – I was happy enough with having a job! I had finally found the job that would pay me for all the hard work I had put in while I was in school. I remember telling myself “Going forward, it was going to be smooth sailing!” I would later regret having uttered those words!

Soon after I started my new job, top-level management decided that the company needed to make some employee adjustments to remain competitive in the market and co-workers in my own group started getting laid off! All of a sudden, the fears and frustrations of keeping a job resurfaced. I found myself working harder than I had ever worked before, waking up earlier to beat the morning traffic jam, staying late after work and sometime even working through my lunch break. I was working myself to death at the age of 23 and for what? To make an attempt at keeping a job that was ONLY allowing me to earn enough money to pay minimums on my student loan debt and credit card debt before having to adjust for cost of living!

I felt betrayed by the system but more importantly, I knew that I could not continue on this path to insanity! The cubicle, early mornings, late nights, traffic jams, the horrible diet I was putting myself through and stresses of keeping my job were destroying me as a person. However, I knew that the only thing that would determine my way of life in the future was how I responded to this new and unprecedented challenge, not how I reacted to it – I was determined to find a way to live my ideal lifestyle, so I took action and started an Internet Business.

But I also realized that, like me, there were millions of other corporate professionals undergoing similar, and even worse, circumstances.

I founded Internet Entrepreneur Connection as a space where young, and older, like-minded professionals can get connected to design the lifestyle they’ve envisioned for themselves through Internet Entrepreneurship and succeed in this new global economy, but to also discover how to make their money work for them starting today so that they don’t have to work for their money the rest of their lives.

My goal is to be the bridge that will allow you to make that Connection!