ANDRES ACOSTA
Andres Acosta
he/him/él
Executive Board
Andres Acosta is a queer Colombian American and veteran of the US Navy, where he served as a surface rescue swimmer and damage controlman responsible for training all personnel on shipboard firefighting and emergency repairs. He is a graduate of Valencia College and the University of Central Florida where he studied Industrial/OrganizationalPsychology. He started his non-profit career at Heart of Florida United Way as a program coordinator, later worked as the community relations manager for the Contigo Fund which is the largest funder of LGBTQ+ issues in Central Florida. He was a program manager for Maven Leadership Collective and still works as an advisor for the organization. He worked as the Director of Respite Operations for Peer Support Space before stepping down to take on his new role as education program specialist at the OnePulse foundation. Andres uses his lived experience to guide his work as an activist devoted to the fight for HIV justice. He currently serves on the Central Florida HIV planning council in the membership and PR & Marketing committee, he is the chair of the community advisory board for the HIV vaccine trials at Orlando Immunology Center, and he is leading the HIV stigma task force for Orange County Department of Health. Andres also sits on the board of directors for L.O.U.D (Latino Outreach and Understanding Division) by AIDS Healthcare Foundation and was recently selected for the board of directors of Qlatinx.