Tony Baéz, a leader of Milwaukee's Latin community, was born Luis Antonio Baéz in Caguas, Puerto Rico on September 3, 1948. After graduating from high school in 1966, he attended the University of Puerto Rico and was active in community liaison work. In Milwaukee, Tony Baéz worked for the La Guardia community newspaper from December 1970 to February 1971, and served as director of the Centro Nuestro-Inner City Development Program from February 1971 through June 1972.
Baéz attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after leaving the Centro Nuestro, and received a B.A. in education in 1974. During the 1970s, Baéz worked in a number of capacities, particularly in Milwaukee's Northeast Side Latin Community. In 1973-1974, he was a team leader for the Advocate Education Program-Teacher Corps for Corrections-Milwaukee (AEP-TCC-M), and as such, was one of seven persons placed throughout the city to train UWM student interns for educational work with “conflict” adolescents. In addition, Baéz was a coordinator and teacher for the Community Independent Learning Program (CILP), which was a two-year alternative high school in which Baéz taught courses in reading interpretation and Puerto Rican history. He was a curriculum specialist for the Milwaukee Public Schools' (MPS) Curriculum Adaptation Network for Bilingual/Bicultural Education (CANBBE), and an active member of the United States-China Peoples Friendship Association. Baéz sat on the MPS Special Committee to Study Advisory Neighborhood School Boards, which considered decentralization and community control of school administration. Another MPS committee with which Baéz participated studied the problem of school truancy. His last position in Milwaukee before returning to Puerto Rico was program coordinator for the Midwest National-Origin Desegregation-Assistance Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Baéz returned to Puerto Rico in September 1979, to work with the youth in his home town of Caguas. Noting his departure, the Milwaukee Journal praised his achievements in education, and his defense of Latin youths who were blamed for violence on Milwaukee's south side in the summer of 1979.
Baéz returned to Milwaukee approximately in 1981, and from 1981-1996 was an Adjunct Faculty in Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). From 1985-1992, he worked at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), where he was the Assistant to the President from 1985-1988, the Interim Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 1988-1989, and the Associate Dean for Instructional Support from 1989-1992. From 1993-1995 Baéz was a Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) for the Center for Urban Community Development (CUCD), and Assistant Professor from 1995-1996. From 1996-1998, Baéz was the Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs at Hostos Community College, a City University of New York and bilingual college by legislative enactment. From 1998-2000, Baéz was the Director/Dean of the Division of Institutional Assessment, Research, and Development at MATC, and from 1999-2004 he was the Provost and Chief Academic Officer at MATC. In 2005, Baéz was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) School of Continuing Education. Throughout his career, Baéz was involved in numerous educational and Hispanic organizations.
