{"id":12620,"date":"2022-03-01T20:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T04:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/?p=12620"},"modified":"2026-02-19T13:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:42:28","slug":"gloria-ochoa-bruck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/2022\/03\/01\/gloria-ochoa-bruck\/","title":{"rendered":"Spokane Judge Fulfills Dream of Earning MBA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Spokane
\u201cI am big believer that it\u2019s never too late pursue a goal,\u201d says Gloria Ochoa-Bruck.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Gloria Ochoa-Bruck<\/a> (\u201997 Busi. Admin.,\u201919 MA Crim. Jus. & Crim., \u201921 MBA), a municipal court judge in Spokane, was a first-generation college student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She knew she would be a good attorney if she could find a pathway to law school. But early in her college years, she struggled to manage full-time work, attend classes at Columbia Basin Community College, and care for her newborn son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About halfway through her associate\u2019s degree program, an advisor told her she should switch to the paralegal program. Ochoa-Bruck almost gave up on her dream of becoming an attorney. Fortunately, she connected with a different advisor who encouraged her to continue following her passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ochoa-Bruck\u2019s steadfastness in holding onto her dreams led to a career in public service and criminal justice reform. And recently, she earned her MBA at WSU<\/a>\u2014a degree she had started years earlier but put on hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am big believer that it\u2019s never too late to pursue a goal,\u201d Ochoa-Bruck says. \u201cRegardless of whether I was in the private or public sector, I knew a working knowledge of finances and budgeting, among other disciplines in the MBA program, would be highly valuable skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of understanding business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Understanding business is an asset for lawyers, says Ochoa-Bruck, who graduated with a bachelor\u2019s in business administration from WSU Tri-Cities in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her next goal was to earn both a law degree and an MBA through a WSU-University of Idaho partnership available at the time. She was accepted at U of I\u2019s College of Law and began law classes during the fall semester of 1998. Her plan was to work on her MBA after her first year of law school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ochoa-Bruck took several MBA classes between completing her bachelor\u2019s degree and starting law school. She earned her Juris Doctor in 2000, but then life got in the way, disrupting her MBA studies. She moved back to Washington, started working, got married, and had two more children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She earned a master\u2019s in criminal justice and criminology in 2019 from WSU, but the regret of not completing her MBA weighed heavily on Ochoa-Bruck. She eventually petitioned for readmission to complete the MBA she had started 22 years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was readmitted to the WSU online MBA program in 2019 and completed her degree in the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am very proud of completing the MBA program,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was an accomplishment years in the making, which made the achievement that much more satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of an online MBA degree in the workforce<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With technology playing such an integral role in today\u2019s environment, Ochoa-Bruck says she valued the WSU online MBA program\u2019s emphasis on information technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether you work in the private sector, nonprofit sector, or government, technology has completely changed how we do our work,\u201d she says. \u201cIncorporating information technology early in a project leads to better outcomes and greater success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeking to fulfill a higher calling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ochoa-Bruck\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 includes working as a deputy prosecutor, an adjunct law professor, and a tribal court judge. She also had a private law practice and was the city of Spokane\u2019s director of local government and multicultural affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, Ochoa-Bruck decided to run for election to the Spokane Municipal Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was told I shouldn\u2019t do it; that I would not win the election,\u201d Ochoa-Bruck says. \u201cI am proud of myself for having the courage to take a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ochoa-Bruck won the election and took office on November 24, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDare to dream big,\u201d she says. \u201cThings will most likely not go as planned, but stay true to who you are. Your journey is yours, and you can go at your own pace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\tLearn more about the Carson College of Business online MBA programs\t\t\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gloria Ochoa-Bruck\u2019s steadfastness in holding onto her dreams led to a career in public service and criminal justice reform. She recently earned her MBA at WSU\u2014a degree she had started years earlier, but put on hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[639],"featured_media":16487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[425,606,625],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12620"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18704,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12620\/revisions\/18704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12620"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author?post=12620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}