Barreto Family, Coworkers Unite

A native of Columbia, Barreto came to the United States in 1996 and began driving for Walker Concrete in 2011. He was living the American Dream, working hard and raising a son, Daniel, along with his wife, Katerine. Walker Concrete General Manager Mark Rongey has often called Barreto “a model employee.”

But Barreto’s life began to swirl like a concrete mixer in 2019, when it was discovered during Daniel’s freshman year of high school that his optic nerves were inflamed. His vision quickly worsened to 20/800 in his left eye and 20/600 in his right, meaning he could only see things at 20 feet that others with normal vision could see from 800 or 600 feet away.

“Our lives before this were going great,” Barreto says. “But after that, everything changed. Life was not the same.”

That’s because Daniel spent months being examined by various doctors – ophthalmologists, genetic physicians, an auto-immune doctor – while undergoing nearly a dozen MRIs and taking mounds of medications. In a quest to discover a solution, the family made trips back home to see a doctor in Columbia as well as a specialist in Germany. All this required Barreto to miss time at work while simultaneously dealing with expensive medical bills.

“It was a real hard time for the whole family,” Barreto says. “But my boss and everybody at the company gave me a lot of support. I would need to take a few days off and they would say, ‘Do whatever you have to do to take care of your son.’ Coworkers would call us home and ask about Danny. They helped give us the support to get through it.”

That support included a barbeque cookout fundraiser organized by Barreto’s Walker Concrete co-workers. It was a moment that greatly touched the entire Barreto family. “It was very special, seeing everybody there for us.” Katerine says. “Everybody was just so wonderful.”

Through treatment, Daniel’s eyesight gradually improved, and he graduated from high school with a 4.0 grade-point average. That earned him a full academic scholarship to Notre Dame, where he is majoring in marketing. Daniel’s vision is now 20/40 in his left eye and 20/30 in his right eye. This has enabled him to finally obtain a driver’s license, and also ditch his bulky glasses for contacts.

While Daniel credits his parents for having the determination to find a solution to his problem, he also tremendously appreciates the support that Walker Concrete provided along the way.

“To me, that’s what a family is,” Daniel says. “We’re not related by blood, but my dad works with these people every day. Their willingness to support us was amazing.”

“That was something our family didn’t expect. But it was something that we needed at the moment, knowing that we had people who were there for us in a really tough situation.”

It is an experience that the entire family obviously will never forget, even as Daniel has been able to continue with his life. He recently accepted an opportunity to study abroad at Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago, Chile from February to July of 2025. “My dad’s job has helped me reach this point,” Daniel says. “It hasn’t been easy living with this condition, but you have to keep moving forward and persevere.”

Seeing that type of attitude from his son is one of the things that has enabled Barreto to keep moving forward as well. “Our son never gave up. And because he never gave up, that gave me the power to keep going,” Barreto says.

“He could have been frustrated his whole life, but he took the other way. He was determined to do something. Now he’s happy, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.”