“Never argue with an idiot…” Bert Ogden Arena latest success

Alonzo Cantu:

Forty years ago, Alonzo Cantu was fresh out of the University of Houston with a degree in finance, working with his dad, Guadalupe Cantu, as they began to build a business: Cantu Construction. Five years later, Alonzo Cantu was one of a group of local businessmen who founded Lone Start National Bank.

Today, one could easily describe him as one of the RGV’s biggest homegrown success stories, considering that he was born relatively poor in the old labor camp near the corner of McColl and Hackberry in McAllen. His family went to Mexico for a short while after he was born, but returned to McAllen when he started the second grade. While growing up, Cantu worked the farm migrant circuit with his parents, picking grapes before graduating from McHi in 1973. Initially, he went to UT-Pan Am (now UTRGV) to get his pre-requisites to gain entry into pharmacy school, but once enrolled, he decided that the profession wasn’t for him; so he switched to the University of Houston and majored in business and finance.

“When I came back, I worked for a bank, decided that wasn’t for me, so I joined my father in the construction business. We built two homes in 1978 and moved on from there.”

Read the entire story on the e-Edition of our newspaper. http://www.etypeservices.com/Advance%20News%20JournalID455/