Michael Albert “Mike” Hernandez III is the semi-retired CEO of D & M Leasing, one of the Dallas, Texas, area’s leading vehicle leasing companies. Mike Hernandez is additionally a noted supporter of a wide range of charitable causes, particularly those that benefit underserved students and the citizens of Brownsville, his hometown.
His family’s roots in the Brownsville and Cameron County region are deep, on both his mother’s and his father’s sides. His father, Miguel Hernandez, Jr., married Ana Maria Sanchez from San Benito, and the couple became the parents of two boys and two girls.
Farther back along the family tree, on the maternal side, were great-grandparents Emilio and Delores Sanchez, who came to Brownsville from Mexico in 1911, during the Mexican Revolution. San Luis Potosi, their original home, is known as a colonial-era city with a rich history, and a center of mining in generations past.
The paternal side of the family tree traces back to great-great-great-grandparents Praxedis Orive and his second wife, Benigna Trevino. Their son, Atenojenes Orive, was a businessman who co-managed the Palmito Ranch property with a relative and became a local real estate entrepreneur and county commissioner in the latter part of the 19th century. Several succeeding generations of the family were born at Palmito Ranch.
