Alberto Luera is a long time community worker and activist.  Born and raised in Laredo, Texas, he joined the Chicano political movement for civil rights and self determination during his college years in the late sixties at Texas A & I University in Kingsville,  Texas.  His commitment to this movement has carried him through his trajectory of life and has continued in his later years.  For more than fifty years, Luera has worked in all facets of community development, self determination and empowerment projects throughout Southern Texas.  In 2005, he moved to Houston where he has remained actively involved with several community groups in civil and human rights causes. 

Luera became familiar with the philosophy and work of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in the mid seventies. The Center and its director, Pliny Fisk, became involved with the City of Crystal City in southwestern Texas.  When the city’s natural gas supply was cut off, the Center constructed and made available solar water heaters and cooking and heating apparatus to the community residents.  In the late eighties Luera became involved with the Center and Pliny through the nonprofit he was heading in developing the Texas-Israel Exchange demonstration farm in Laredo.  For two years, APSS, the nonprofit headed by Luera, continued to operate the demonstration farm, until the Texas Department of Agriculture withdrew the support and the facility returned to the Laredo Community College where it is now a nature center and museum.  In 1996, Luera was invited to join the CMPBS Board of Directors, where he has served as a board member to the present.

Alberto Luera is retired and volunteers with several other nonprofit groups.  He enjoys going to dinner with his wife, playing with their kitties, reading pulp fiction and chatting on his amateur radio station.