Honoring Kansas' Business Legacy, Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders

Kansas Business Hall of Fame

2024 Contemporary Winner

Yolanda and Gene Camarena 

Gene Camarena, whose company La Raza Pizza, Inc., is currently one of the 150 largest Hispanic-owned businesses in the nation, grew up on the predominantly Hispanic and African American north side of Salina, Kansas, in the late 1950s and 1960s.  His grandmother migrated to the area from Mexico at the turn of the century, worked as a housekeeper and a cook, and saved her earnings to buy small neighborhood houses, giving one to each of her eleven children as they married and started families of their own.  She sent each of her children to college, with the stipulation good grades must be maintained to remain in school.  Gene’s mother grew up in an orphanage, finished a sixth-grade education, and as an adult started one of Salina’s first community centers, which included a library, a food bank, and a clothing closet.  Gene’s father held undergraduate and graduate degrees.  Growing up in this culture, Gene was instilled with the values of holding family as priority and of obtaining an education. 

After graduating high school, Gene entered the University of Kansas to pursue pre-medical studies; however, during his second semester in a challenging chemistry class he realized the sciences were not his interest or strength.  He graduated from KU in 1979 with a degree in accounting and finance and began an auditing job in Wichita, Kansas.  While in Wichita, he met and then dated his future wife, Yolanda, a graduate of Wichita State University.  As Gene analyzed business profit/loss statements in his accounting job, a yearning grew to start his own business.  To be near Yolanda, who held a position as Associate Director of graduate programs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and to fill a knowledge gap, he applied and was accepted into the competitive Harvard School of Business, completing a master’s program. 

The couple, now both with their graduate’s degrees, left Cambridge, Massachusetts, and returned to Wichita.  Gene took a job with Don and Frank Carney’s Pizza Hut Corporation as manager of acquisitions, repurchasing franchises and other businesses.  In 1991, Gene left his managerial position and became a franchise owner, purchasing eight poorly performing Pizza Hut restaurants in the panhandle of Texas.  Following core principles of keeping a thorough budget for all expenses, maintaining a conservative debt to revenue ratio, treating employees like family, and promoting from within, Camarena expanded his business to twenty Pizza Hut restaurants in three years.  In 1995, Camarena entered the hotel industry, opening a Marriott Fairfield Inn in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Camarena’s diversified portfolio includes restaurants in three states, multiple Marriott franchises, real estate and banking holdings, along with a recent capital investment in a semi-truck parts supply company.   

The couple generously support with their time and money the Wichita community, where Gene jokes he is known as Yolanda’s husband.  Awarded an honorary doctorate in 2015 by Newman University, Yolanda currently serves on  the Board of the Kansas Hispanic Education and Development Foundation, as Chair of the Schools and Scholarship Committee of Harvard College, and on Board of the Wichita Community Foundation.  He works with at-risk middle school students, teaching them life and business principles and funding college scholarships.  Gene regularly shares his business acumen with students at Wichita State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, advising them to “stay in your lane,” do the business you know, and find a partner who complements your strengths and weaknesses.  Gene currently serves on the Wichita board of Big Brothers Big Sisters.  In 2020, the Camarenas gifted Wichita State University one million dollars to in part provide students of color educational scholarships.   

Yolanda and Gene support with donations the Adelante Annual Scholarship fund at Butler Community College.  In 2013, they were inducted into the Fran Jabara Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame and in 2019 were recognized by the Wichita Business Journal with the Outstanding Philanthropist Award for their exceptional civic responsibility and generous financial support in the community.   The couple was named as the 2021 Wichita Business Hall of Fame laureates.