Rainbow Water hires new chief financial officer

Village News/Courtesy photo

Rick Aragon is the new chief financial officer for Rainbow Municipal Water District.

FALLBROOK – Rainbow Municipal Water District welcomed a new chief financial officer, Rick Aragon. Aragon joined the team at the end of January and worked with staff to manage financial planning and customer service.

Aragon joins Rainbow Water with nearly two decades of expertise in accounting, finance, grants, and contracts and with 10 years of experience as a chief financial officer for a variety of different size water districts in Southern California.

He most recently led the finance team at Coachella Valley Water District as the director of finance, where he had responsibility over annual budgets and investments of $500-600 million. He was previously senior adviser on economic, legislative and advanced rate making issues to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, who oversees all Alaska's utilities and common carrier oil and natural gas pipelines.

He served seven years as the assistant general manager and chief financial officer for Rancho California Water District in Temecula and worked as the director of finance and acting water resources manager at the Central Basin Municipal Water District in Commerce, a member agency of the Metropolitan Water District.

"I am excited to hit the ground running to support this district in continuing the work of being worthy of the community's trust, and in the board's commitment to transparency, and effective and prudent stewardship of its resources as we embark on a new chapter with the detachment from the San Diego County Water Authority," Aragon said.

As Rainbow Water's chief financial officer, Aragon will be responsible for the fiscal year operating and capital improvement budget, financial reporting and accounting, investment management, debt management, detachment transition, financial reserves, grants administration, and supervise the finance, purchasing and customer service teams.

He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from California Baptist University in Riverside and is a certified public finance officer from the Government Finance Officers Association. Aragon also serves on the board of directors for the Water Education Foundation.

Aragon fills a position left vacant in December with the departure of former finance manager, Tracy Largent. Largent led the finance team for five years and departed to serve as the chief financial officer for Port of San Diego.

Submitted by Rainbow Municipal Water District.