His desk is covered with stacks of paper. A master plan of Moorpark College covers his office wall, displaying buildings he had a part in erecting. For Vice President of Business Services Ray Di Guilio, the buildings are like badges of honor. In his three-decade-career with Ventura County’s community colleges, Di Guilio has had many responsibilities and has worn many proverbial hats. He has both hired and fired people. He closed a cafeteria and has overseen the opening of several academic buildings. In the middle of his career, he ran for and was elected the Mayor of the City of Ventura.

After an illustrious 30-year career with the Ventura County Community College District, Di Guilio is retiring. He first was employed at Ventura College in the 1970’s, and worked there for 20 years. Then, he was transferred to Moorpark College with the help of then-President James Walker. At Moorpark, Di Guilio became the V.P. of Business Services, a position that Di Guilio said was under a couple of different names over the years. In the meantime he also worked at the district office in Ventura.

A few years later in 1996, he was transferred again to Oxnard College in the same position. However, he soon decided to take a step into politics, and was elected to Ventura’s City Council in 1995. He soon was elected again as mayor of his hometown, and found that being both an elected official and V.P. at OC was too much.
“The work load became overwhelming,” said Di Guilio.

Di Guilio decided in 1999 to “temporarily retire” from the district, or in his words, was on a “leave of absence,” to allow more time to serve as Ventura’s Mayor.
A sense of deja vu came to Di Guilio when he decided to not seek a third term for Mayor and instead came back to Moorpark College as the V.P. of Business Services in 2004.
Di Guilio considered his greatest accomplishment to be, among other things, to “engage in stabilizing the college’s finances,” and to be involved with college construction projects.
“I am pleased to be involved with the college facilities.”

Di Guilio considers the toughest aspects of his job to be dealing with budget cuts and having to give employees a pink slip. He cited the temporary closure and laying off of employees at the MC Cafeteria in 2004/2005 to be one of the hardest decisions he had to make. However, he said that later he was able to rehire some of the laid off employees for the bookstore.