Photo: UNO Alumni President Lee Denker, Martinez and Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
Association honors Mark Martinez with achievement award
The UNO Alumni Association bestowed its Citation for Alumni Achievement award upon UNO graduate Mark A. Martinez during the university’s December Commencement ceremony Friday, Dec. 20, at 9 a.m., at Baxter Arena. An Omaha native, Martinez boasts a long and distinguished career in law enforcement.
Inaugurated in 1949, the Citation is the association’s highest honor. It encompasses career achievement, community service, involvement in business and professional associations, and fidelity to UNO. Martinez is the 181st grduate to receive the award in its 70-year hixtory.
Martinez is a two-time UNO graduate as part of the UNO Goodrich Scholarship Program and has a BS (1982) and MS (1993) in criminal justice. A standout athlete at Omaha South High School, he was a four-year letterman for the UNO baseball team and was named All-North Central Conference as a senior. He was a second baseman on UNO’s 1979 and 1981 North Central Conference championship teams.
After graduating, Martinez became a crime lab technician for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. Two years later he joined the Omaha Police Department (OPD), becoming a sergeant then a lieutenant. He then became the first Latino with OPD to become a captain, then a deputy chief. His father, Alfred Martinez, had been the first Latino hired by OPD, in 1956. Martinez concluded his OPD career in 2009.
In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Martinez as the first Latino to the post of United States Marshal for the District of Nebraska. He concluded his career with the U.S Marshals Service in 2018.
Martinez has been extensively involved in the community with volunteer service as a little league baseball coach and for St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, the Latino Center of the Midlands, and the Omaha and Nebraska chapters of the National Latino Peace Officers Association. He was the first Latino elected to the Omaha Public School Board, in 2002. He currently serves on the boards of Crime Stoppers Omaha and Completely KIDS and on the Project Safe Neighborhood Subgrant Award Committee. A former adjunct professor at UNO, he also is a member of the university’s Goodrich Scholarship Program Alumni Advisory Board.
His numerous awards and honors include membership in the South High School Hall of Fame, the National Latino Peace Officers Association Leadership Award, and alumni awards from UNO’s College of Public Affairs & Community Service and School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Martinez and his wife of 35 years, Cyndi, have four children.