“I came here at the age of seven,” Hernandez said at the New York State Republican Convention at the Garden City Hotel in Nassau County, where he received the party’s official nomination.
“My father was a political prisoner. My dad launched his business. My mom cleaned houses. And they taught us a couple of very bold lessons."
The first lesson, he said, was about self-reliance.
“You better work hard because nothing in this country is free. Some people think it is. That’s not the case. Nothing is free. There is no such thing as a free lunch."
The second lesson was the value of education.
“Education was our ticket out of that situation,” Hernandez said, noting that he earned five degrees, three from the University of Florida, one from Yale and one from Oxford.
Most important, he said, was love of country.
“My parents said this country gave them the opportunity to be bigger. You have to love it unconditionally,” he said.
“This great, capitalistic, individual country allows a person to dream, allows a little Cuban kid to dream that one day he would run for Comptroller of the State of New York.”
Calling the upcoming election “a big, amazing battle that’s transformative,” Hernandez warned that New York is on a “very, very dangerous trajectory.”
Hernandez is an entrepreneur and investor in biotechnology and healthcare and the founder and senior managing partner of Blue Water Venture Partners.
Over his career, he has founded or led more than a dozen companies and taken multiple firms public on the NASDAQ.
He is the father of three children.