​Ray Ruiz

​ 
Since childhood, I've always been fascinated by fishing. As a child, my parents would take us fishing in the lakes and rivers outside of the big city of Chicago. It was during one of those fishing trips that my life changed. I caught my first bass when I was 7 years old, and since then I've been in love with the sport of fishing.​
 

My Story
​
Ray Ruiz Jr. grew up in a working-class barrio in the windy city of Chicago. His parents, immigrants from Mexico, raised Ray and his two brothers and sister in a neighborhood that was ridden with gangs, drugs, and violence. Ray senior routinely took his four children fishing and hunting, where he would share the lessons, he learned growing up in Mexico where he had to hunt and fish to put food on the family table. Ray used these early opportunities to hone and develop his outdoors skills under his father’s tutelage. These fishing lessons evolved into a pastime that eventually became an obsession that motivated Ray to compete in his first amateur angling tournament at the tender age of 15. As he grew, Ray continued following his passion for fishing and competed in bass tournaments all through college. Ray attended the University of Minnesota where he double majored in Sociology and Chicano Studies. Following his undergraduate education, Ray remained at the University of Minnesota and received his Master’s degree In Latin American Studies.
After university, Ray lived out his dream and competed all over the Midwest and other parts of the United Stated as a professional Bass Angler. He also had a successful career in the beverage industry where he worked in sales & marketing for a large distribution company. In 2017 Ray started his fishing company Baztec, Inc. Minnesota’s first bilingual fishing educational platform dedicated to serving folks from the Latino community. In 2018, Ray was recruited by the MN DNR to help support and facilitate the “I Can Fish” program. Shortly after, he was asked to join the agency on a short-term contract. In 2021, Ray left the MN DNR to continue to grow and expand Baztec full-time. Since then, Ray and his team have hosted and facilitated over 200 community outreach fishing events with a distinct focus on delivering programming to underrepresented communities and people of color. In 2023, in conjunction to his business, Ray founded Baztec Fishing & Outdoors, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that aims to enhance Baztec, Inc mission by providing fishing, hunting, camping, biking, birding and other outdoor activities to kids of color, as well as scholarship opportunities for BIPOC youth that want to get into Natural Resources and STEM fields.
When Ray isn’t serving others in our community, you can find him fishing on a local metro lake or river, practicing Jiu Jitsu, reading, or writing in his home in North Minneapolis. 
​

​​501(c)(3) Non-Profit