When Steve Aragon’s daughter invited him to speak to her students for career day, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He was lined up behind a judge, a SWAT team member and a zoologist. But when it was his turn to speak, it came to him.
Steve Aragon
“How many of you like to solve puzzles?” he asked the children, almost all of whom raised their hands. “Well, that’s what I do. I solve puzzles.”
For the last 18 years, Aragon has solved HHS’s legal puzzles, first as general counsel in a one-man legal shop and ultimately as chief counsel with a staff of 147 across the state serving a group of agencies with more than 56,000 employees.
“I never thought of myself as someone who practices law,” said Aragon, who retired at the end of February. “I thought of myself as someone who practiced problem-solving.”…