MinerAlert
MinerAlert
September 2026
By Sandra Ramirez ’08, ’21
Richard Salcido remembers being just six years old when he watched the Texas Western College Miners win the 1966 NCAA Championship.
“My uncles were big sports fans,” recalled Salcido. “They loved their Dallas Cowboys, and they loved their UTEP Miners. I grew up watching UTEP sports, then 1966 happened and I fell in love with UTEP at a young age.”
When it was time to go to college, Salcido said it was a “no-brainer” that he would attend UTEP. At the time, he could not afford the classes, so he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and after completing his required service, he enrolled at UTEP. Salcido wanted to pursue an undergraduate degree in social work, but UTEP did not have a program at the time. Instead, Salcido majored in education with a minor in psychology and graduated in 1978. He would return to UTEP to complete a master’s degree in mental health in 1986.
Salcido’s career started at the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence (CASFV) in El Paso, where he was among the first group that helped open the center’s doors.
At the time, it was uncommon for counselors to work with perpetrators of domestic violence in sessions that also included family members who had experienced the abuse.
“I was a pioneer at that time because I was hired to do counseling with a perpetrator,” Salcido said. “The shelter was brand new and it was very innovative for them to hire a counselor to counsel the perpetrator in counsel with the families where there had been domestic violence. That was a humble beginning to my career.”
After a couple of years at CASFV, Salcido transitioned to Family Service of El Paso as a psychotherapist. He eventually became the executive director and spent the next 40 years of his career shaping and advancing the mental health landscape in El Paso.
One of the most impactful changes Salcido witnessed in his career was adjusting to telehealth during the pandemic and the impact it has had on expanding mental health services.
“I would say that more than half of the services being provided by therapists now are being provided via telehealth,” Salcido said. “What that's also done is allow a lot of private practitioners and people that can work from home providing counseling not only to people in their city, but to people throughout the country.”
Salcido said that in the past decade, therapists have started to see a trend in people’s behavior due to childhood trauma.
“Whenever we see depression, bipolar disorder and serious mental illnesses, we can almost always trace it back to trauma experienced in childhood,” Salcido said.
One of the most significant changes for Salcido throughout his career has been the reduction of stigma associated with receiving therapy.
“I started my career in the 1970s and there were people who would not go to therapy because they saw that as a sign of weakness,” he said. “They would not go to therapy because they were embarrassed or would not go to therapy because they didn't believe in it.”
Salcido joined the board of directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, in El Paso. After becoming board president, he wrote a grant to secure funding from the Paso del Norte Health Foundation to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness by teaching families and the community about mental illness.
“There are families that are experiencing mental illness, but we also provided these classes to law enforcement, medical personnel like nurses, doctors and support staff,” Salcido said. “We’ve been doing this for 12 to 13 years and that has helped reduce stigma in our community.”
Salcido dedicated his career to ensuring that mental health services are accessible to everyone who needs them. He worked to overcome financial and cultural barriers and make counseling services affordable to anyone regardless of their ability to pay.
For Salcido, accessibility to mental health services also includes training qualified Spanish-speaking therapists, a need he says is greater than ever.
Salcido has committed his career to developing the next generation of mental health professionals through his work with UTEP and EPCC. Although he retired from Family Service of El Paso in 2023, he still operates a private practice where he supervises graduates who need to complete required supervised practice hours to become licensed. Salcido estimates he has supervised more than 400 students over the span of his career.
Salcido’s professional contributions to the mental health space in El Paso earned him the Gold Nugget Award in 2022. The recognition was especially meaningful because it came from the University he has admired throughout his life.
“I'm very grateful to UTEP in all respects, even my quality of life because I still attend every basketball game, every football game and so I’m very grateful to UTEP,” Salcido said.