Serious about justice. Grounded in community.

Big Dan is proud to be from Las Milpas.

Before the law degree, before the courtroom, and before serving his country in the United States Air Force, there was Las Milpas.

Dan grew up in a small, modest wood-frame home in Las Milpas, in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley. There was no air conditioning and not much money. He was raised by a single mother who worked at Rio Fresh, a packing plant in San Juan, earning just a little more than minimum wage.

It wasn't a life of privilege. It was a South Texas working-family life—where people worked long hours, stretched every dollar, helped their neighbors, and kept going when things got hard.

And Dan is proud of it.

Las Milpas is where his story begins.

It is where he learned that a person's worth isn't measured by the size of their house, the neighborhood they come from, or how much money their family has. It is where he learned the dignity of work and what working families go through just to give their children an opportunity to get ahead.

Those lessons followed him when he left home for college. They followed him into the United States Air Force, where he spent six years working on fighter aircraft. They followed him back to college, into community service, through law school, into the public defender's office, and eventually into his own law practice.

And they will follow him into every decision he makes as a judge.

Dan has never forgotten the little house or the community that raised him.

He is from Las Milpas. He is proud of Las Milpas. And wherever life has taken him, Las Milpas has always been home.

After six years in the United States Air Force working on fighter aircraft, Dan went back to college and then on to the University of Houston Law Center.

Aircraft maintenance is unforgiving work. You follow the procedure, you document what you did, and you never sign off on something you have not checked yourself. Appellate work rewards the same discipline: read the entire record, apply the governing standard, and show how you got there.

He is licensed by the State Bar of Texas and admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Dan is running because most South Texans will never see their case reach the Texas Supreme Court. For them, the 13th Court of Appeals is where the law becomes final.

A court that reaches the right result for the wrong reasons — or writes an opinion no one outside the courthouse can follow — still leaves a community without a rule it can rely on. Appellate work should be careful, patient, and written to be understood.

He is not seeking this seat to advance an agenda. He is seeking it to do the work: read every record, apply the law as written, decide each case on its own facts, and explain the result plainly.