Students, faculty and staff of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (SMWC) were honored to have Cyndi Carrasco as a guest speaker to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month. Carrasco is an SMWC trustee and attorney in Indianapolis at Riley Bennet Egloff in the firm’s Government Affairs group. She is a Republican candidate for Marion County Prosecutor in the upcoming election in November.
Carrasco told the gathered group about her upbringing, in El Paso, Texas to parents that were both immigrants from Mexico and became U.S. citizens. She spoke of her love of school and how she was excited to go on to college after graduating eighth in her high school class. She went to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. She wanted to become an advocate for people and decided the best way to do that was to become a lawyer. Carrasco told the attendees, “I was taught that if you worked hard enough, you could become whatever you wanted to be.” During her time at UTEP, the school began a program to develop Hispanic students to continue to law school and Carrasco applied and was accepted into the program.
While at UTEP, she was recruited by the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law with a visit by the dean who explained to her that she wanted to expand the school with more women and more Hispanics. Carrasco moved to Indianapolis and began law school. “It was different from being in El Paso where there were people that looked like me and spoke like me,” said Carrasco. Upon graduation, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay. But her husband pointed out that if she wanted to be an advocate, Indianapolis was the place. She was hired as a staff attorney for the Office of Inspector General for the state of Indiana and six months later she was promoted to the Executive Director of the State Ethics Commission. “Here I was at 25 years old, telling the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and the Secretary of State, what they could and couldn’t do,” Carrasco told the audience.
After serving in that role for over eight years, she was appointed Indiana’s second-ever Inspector General and the first woman to hold that position. Her agency investigated white-collar criminal activity.
Her most recent job in state government was serving as Deputy General Counsel and Ethics Officer to Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. “It was very intense when COVID hit. I was asked in January of 2020 on a Monday to draft an Executive Order in case it was needed and by Thursday, I was notified that there would be a press conference to implement the order.” She said that the hardest part was being a part of the decision to shut down the state. “We knew it would affect people’s lives, but we also knew that it would save lives. It was a really hard decision.” There were no examples to use as this was a new situation that had never occurred. “I suggested that we could open back up with carry-out and businesses could just bring items out to people’s cars so that we could open up businesses.” Many other states followed Indiana’s idea and businesses began to open back up using the carry-out option.
Carrasco’s decision to be a candidate for Marion County Prosecutor stemmed from her long-time desire to be an advocate. She believes that she can make a difference as a prosecutor.
She concluded with encouraging words for the students in attendance and connected with attendees as she took questions.