Jose Fontes is one of those guys with a picture-perfect life, but perfection doesn’t happen overnight. He is a testament to what hard work, dedication, and discipline can yield. His story is truly the American Dream. And even though he seems to have it all, Jose sees every day as an opportunity to become a bit better than he was the day before. This inspiring outlook is linked to his career path. Jose is in the insurance industry—befitting, especially given his passion for helping others more efficiently protect and prepare the life they are building for the future. Now, as Senior Vice President and P&C Producer at Newfront, Jose’s willingness to adapt and utilize technology allows his Central Valley-based business to reach nationwide operation.

Jose’s road to success was grueling. The story begins in the border town of Juárez, Mexico, where he lived until roughly age 10. Jose’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when he was but a toddler. “She was basically in and out of the hospital,” he says of his childhood. “I mean, I can hardly remember just her,” he admits, noting that she battled the disease over the next five to six years before it finally took her life when he was nine years old. “That, basically, was the first crossroads,” Jose reflects. His mother’s disease somewhat separated the family. “My sister was bouncing from house to house; I was bouncing from house to house,” Jose recalls. That said, “We were blessed that we had a family that loved my mom and my dad. So they all somewhat pitched in.”

Yet, even though surrounded by good friends and family who gladly took him and his older sister in, Jose asks rhetorically, “I guess you’re in survival mode, right?” He continues, “Because your dad’s not there, your mom’s not there. You’re going to school. You’re playing soccer. You’re trying to just do the best you can. I think those years, you just grow up so fast, super, super fast. And obviously, having a modest family that didn’t come from much, didn’t come from a lot of money, my dad really struggled there financially, especially with the cancer and the setback that that put on the family.” Jose had to grow up fast, albeit in a vulnerable and exposed state. “You have to keep your head up and keep going and just know things eventually will turn around. That was my hope.”

Jose adored his father. “He was a great human, very loving. But when my mom passed, my sister and I always thought that he left with her—he was just destroyed, and, unfortunately, he wasn’t there for us. He was MIA, and that gets you to ‘Part Two’ where you’ve got ‘Jose age 11 through 14,’ again moving from house to house because that’s just how it was,” he recounts. “Dad was trying to find himself, and Jose is just trying to find his way.” His father eventually remarried, and the family moved to El Paso, Texas. “In all reality, that was a blessing.” Though it might have seemed like an obstacle at first, Jose quickly realized that “coming into the States opened up that opportunity that I had to explore myself with hard work.”

Experiencing a turbulent childhood opened Jose’s eyes to the world, and he was ready and willing to absorb his new surroundings in the Lone Star State. From age 14 to 18, Jose’s high school years in Texas finally felt hopeful. “That’s when I really was exposed to a lot of different families—very loving, very successful families, and also not successful,” remembers Jose. “I was exposed to a world where there was always—maybe—that light at the end of the tunnel. Where you know everything would be all right with hard work and dedication. So I really put my best foot forward in everything I did.” Even as an adolescent, he was competitive in school and sports, leading him to graduate with a 4.4 GPA.

This tremendous high school success is all the more impressive given that Jose pursued private education and paid for his schooling by working for and saving the funds over the summers to cover what scholarships didn’t. After assessing his options between public and private high schools, Jose was determined to attend Cathedral High School in El Paso. However, his father couldn’t afford the tuition. “So I was given an opportunity by my aunt and uncle to work at the start of my sophomore year.” Thus, Jose lived with them and their two sons for some time. “I worked super long hours on the ranch in the summer with my cousin,” whom Jose affectionally refers to as his brother, his accomplice. “I worked really hard and saved up to pay for my high school all the way through.”

“I was exposed to a world where there was always—maybe—that light at the end of the tunnel. Where you know everything would be all right with hard work and dedication. So I really put my best foot forward in everything I did.”

Cathedral was another crossroads in Jose’s journey. “I knew that that school was going to set me up for my future.” This private, Catholic, all-boys school was known for being a gateway into some of the best colleges. That foundation, coupled with Jose’s academic excellence, earned him an acceptance letter from Pepperdine University in Malibu. “I think that, primarily, was one of my biggest accomplishments. Just to push hard, no matter the struggles. I think that was such a great decision for me to not just say, ‘All right, you can’t pay for it. Just sit back and see what happens.’ I took it upon myself,” he proudly remembers. “What drove me was that was the only way out—to a successful life, to find the woman of your dreams, to start your family. I mean, whatever the fairy tale, the pursuit of happiness that everybody faces in life, is.”

He applied to numerous other schools and toured several college campuses on a trip to California with his aunt and uncle, but Pepperdine was love at first sight. Yet the university, perched above the Pacific Coast Highway, wasn’t the only thing that captured his heart. A love of the ocean, stunning coastline, Californian lifestyle, cool fashion, beautiful people, and gorgeous weather was enough to bring him out west, but, while studying International Business and Finance there, Jose finally met the woman of his dreams: Brittany Lamm, a Central Valley native. His chosen major was rooted in the fact that he was bilingual, and that the global and financial nature of the degree would allow him to potentially travel; plus, around that time, he had also started to take a serious interest in real estate.

Although he was finally getting to live a version of the life he’d always dreamed of, the reality of his college years was that he was there to do a job, and he had to do it in a very short time. “Pepperdine was, obviously, scholarship-driven. Academics was the ticket.” At Pepperdine, Jose was surrounded by success—financially successful and accomplished people. Being exposed to this world further pushed Jose and helped pave new avenues for his success. “On the trips that I took to California, I saw that it was possible to gain some success if you put some hard work in. As soon as I got to Pepperdine, I said, ‘Let’s go!’” Jose pursued the course, despite tight financial straits, and graduated early in just three and a half years.

Since his junior year, Jose aimed to do something in the real estate sphere. Through a job fair at Pepperdine, Jose landed a position with Velocity Financial, Inc., where he worked for about three years and developed great relationships. Around this time, Jose had proposed to Brittany, and during the two years that they were engaged, the conversation about moving back to her hometown, to the Valley, was underway. “I was so passionate about just what I was doing in real estate, and being in LA in a very sexy city with a cool lifestyle—and we’re 25/26—we were loving it. And for me, it was very hard—it wasn’t pulling us apart, but it was a crossroads where I had to make a decision, and I obviously followed my heart and followed my love.”

That’s when a new prospect presented itself at DiBuduo & DeFendis Insurance (D&D). “My father-in-law said, ‘This is an opportunity—you can start working at D&D. You’re in sales. I think you’ll be a good fit.’ Both brothers, Matt and Mike DeFendis, really gave me a shot in the dark,” he acknowledges. Jokingly, he goes on, “I mean, ‘Who is this guy, Jose from LA? With no real sphere of influence here in town… Who is he gonna go after? How is he gonna develop the business?’ And I know that was kind of tough, but I think they saw my hard work and the person that I was right at that meeting. I’m forever grateful and thankful to them for taking a chance on this passionate kid with a dream and providing me the first platform to start my career in this business.” Velocity was one of those connections that Jose brought with him, which developed into one of D&D’s biggest accounts. Over his 16 years there, Jose eventually worked his way up to Vice President at the brokerage.

With insurance, Jose explains, “You have to reinvent yourself every single day. You have to create opportunities from nothing, and you have to create opportunities from existing relationships.” Drawing on his bilingual background and new surroundings, Hispanic and agricultural businesses became two major facets of his growth. Then he turned to the challenge of how he could scale not only locally and regionally but also nationally. Velocity was one such account that had moved into asset management coverage and ended up rapidly growing into a nationwide program for private equity real estate, nationwide lenders, financial institutions, and beyond. “That’s what opened up my eyes to the fact that there’s just a lot of opportunity within that space and not a lot of competition because it’s very specific and customized niche, but it also takes knowledge in that industry to be able to provide exactly the coverages that the lenders or financial institutions are needing,” says Jose, referring back to his first job.

Leaving D&D was no easy discussion, but opportunity crossed his path again in early 2023. While looking at some prospects on the East Coast for the asset protection program, Jose came across Newfront, who quickly started recruiting him pretty heavily. “Sometimes, life puts opportunities in your path, and you either grab them or let them go. But I saw the opportunity with the leadership and where Newfront is positioned right now in the brokerage space of insurance—they were doing things very differently, bringing in a new era of brokerage by implementing a lot of technology into the way we service our clients, and that’s given us the competitive advantage with the larger businesses. The technology that they put in front of us as brokers, … I think it’s going to revolutionize the industry.”

Jose was again at a crossroads. Newfront just felt right, and it was a logical transition especially given Jose’s bigger picture. “My long-time vision and goals were perfectly aligned at Newfront, who has the best-in-class technology available and a service team behind it to support the rapid growth forthcoming with the Real Estate Investor Program,” he shares. “The technology we are utilizing at Newfront, to service the asset protection program, has enabled exponential growth by providing program visibility, real-time updates, customized coverage, and white glove service to all their insurance needs. With confidence I can say, we will be able to grow this vertical 5X within a couple of years!”

Jose is passionate about insurance, but he’s even more passionate about his family. He and Brittany are the proud parents of a beautiful middle school-age daughter, Isabella. Jose is now a self-proclaimed “caddy daddy” and enthusiastically accompanies Bella on the course as she plays golf. The family is avid about health and fitness. After morning coffee together, the couple enjoy hot yoga at Blue Moon Yoga at 5:00AM daily, followed by weight-lifting, VO2max training and a 37-degree cold plunge at Innovative Fitness for him. Early workouts have been part of Jose’s routine since his college days and are just another example of his dedication to betterment. In that lies, for Jose, the key to happiness, “Keep pursuing that happiness, whatever happiness may be for you. That kind of correlates with the way I push myself every day.” Jose knows that “Pursuing happiness can come in many forms; pursuing freedom to give you the ability to live, laugh, and love is what matters at the end. Love is the best form of happiness.”

Jose Fontes has faced many crossroads on his journey to success, yet arguably the man’s truest success lies in his lifelong dedication to self-improvement. “Change may cause challenges, pain, struggle, but it will build character and allow for personal development and growth. Without change, nothing changes!” he insists. “Enjoy the journey in everything you do because that journey is the dream.” Jose aims to inspire with authenticity while working at being the best version of myself—passionate, living, and loving intensely. “Anything is possible—dream big, take your shots, make mistakes, never regret taking chances because they will carve your road and help you to continue pursuing what you are chasing.” Wholeheartedly, he professes, “Work on your mind, be calm, take care of your body and soul; the rest will follow.”

Editorial Director Lauren Barisic
Photographer Ellie Koleen
Groomer & Stylist Samuel Haworth
Wardrobe provided by Patrick James