Meet Mario!

Disneyland

Mario Valdez has had a long history with our company and Carl’s Jr.  Back in 2001, when Mario was in high school, he started his first job working at Carl’s Jr. as a cashier.  A couple of years later, he headed to college at Colorado State University and started working a couple of different jobs.  After his college days got busier and busier, his job at Wells Fargo wasn’t working out with his schedule.  That’s when his sister, Magda (who is our North Star District Manager), suggested that he come back to work for Carl’s Jr.

Mario started back at Carl’s as a shift leader, but he pretty much worked all positions from cook to cashier.  Shortly after, the new POS system, Par, was being installed in all of the stores.  Mario said he was curious about it and starting asking a lot of questions.  Before he knew it, he was helping with installations at night and not long after that, he was even performing them by himself!

Meanwhile, he graduated from the University of Northern Colorado.  In 2009, Mario was offered an official IT Support position.  When the company did some rearranging in 2010, Mario stayed with Buddy’s stores and has been our IT Director ever since.  He said he’s really thankful that Buddy was crazy enough to trust a 24 year old with that position!  Currently, Mario oversees the operations for all of our nearly 300 locations and supervises 7 IT support technicians spread out across the US.

In his free time, which is sparse, Mario likes spending time with his family.  He and his wife, Roxy, have a little boy, Matthew, and a little girl, Samantha, who is on her way in September.   Mario also enjoys playing soccer on the weekends and watching all kinds of other sports, with the Broncos being his favorite team.

Some Interesting Facts About Mario:

  • Astrological Sign: Virgo
  • Favorite Color: Red
  • Favorite Food: Enchiladas
  • Place He Would Most Like to Visit: Italy
  • Favorite Hobby: Watching/Playing sports and teaching them to his son
  • Childhood Dream Job: Professional Soccer Player
  • Little Known Fact: Mario was born in Mexico and lived there until he was about 7 when his family moved to Greeley, CO.  Also, he is almost blind in his right eye.  When he was 5 years old, he was hit with a rock and had to have surgery.  However, it left his vision extremely blurry.  To this day though, Mario admits that he started it!