Founded by freelance journalist and consultant Jasmine Rios, Mina by trade, Mina Communications was established in 2007 with the initial focus on providing the underserved San Diego arts community with solutions to their communications service needs. Having worked in a variety of communications business settings over the decade prior - from a corporate marketing department to two advertising agencies and two publishers - Mina Communications would serve as an independent facilitator of Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, and Grant Writing services for local artists and arts organizations with staffing and budget limitations. 

 

During the company's first year of operation, Rios also found opportunity in freelance writing with the national publication Dancer Magazine - the motivation behind expanding service offerings beyond the local San Diego arts community. Furthering her artistic range in arts news writing, Rios exercised her knowledge of cuisine, by writing for SanDiegoRestaurants.com and SanFranciscoRestaurants.com from 2009 - 2011 (now TableAgent.com), while also gaining momentum in international dance news writing in 2011 with the Vancouver, Canada based Dance International Magazine; followed by Bavaria, Germany's Dance For You Magazine in 2012. That same year, Mina Communications relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Rios is originally from, to set up business operations in Sonoma Wine Country. Mina Communications remains on the global radar to date - continuously expanding its client and contractor base while developing and reporting content for a variety of print and digital media platforms. 

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Born and raised in San Francisco, Rios found inspiration in the arts through film, live dance, music, and theater performance, and the local culinary experience. Rios explored a variety of art forms during her youth beginning with the violin, followed by drama at the Performing Arts Workshop (PAW), and later dance. At 14, Rios auditioned to attend the San Francisco School of the Arts High School (SOTA). Her four-year training included modern, ballet, jazz, and Afro-Cuban dance forms. Rios also trained at San Francisco Ballet School with the intention of pursuing a BFA degree in dance at a university. Only, the idea of pursuing a dance degree was strongly contested at home. Her parents maintained that a BFA in dance was a risk due to job uncertainty. Encouraged to consider other college majors, Rios was conflicted. While weighing her options, Rios danced on the side while attending the College of San Mateo. Before long, an English professor observed she had a knack for writing and advised she consider journalism. Following this valued guidance, Rios transferred to the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University. While completing her course work in news writing and editing, media ethics and libel law, marketing, and public relations, Rios discovered that career opportunities in advertising were plentiful. To this end, she declared advertising as a major with a minor in humanities. Further course work included copywriting, broadcast media advertising, retail advertising, and business to business advertising. During her senior year, she served as a copywriter and key presenter of the winning ad campaign team for the 1997 SJSU Advertising Department Competition. 

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Rios also met her husband, a fellow SJSU Alumni, while attending college, during which they had two children before Rios graduated from San Jose State University in 1997. Rios began her career with Metro Newspapers in San Jose until she and her husband relocated to San Diego in 1998 to raise their family. In San Diego, Rios worked in various communications business settings including the Marketing Department at Charlotte-Russe Corporate Headquarters, Cordero & Davenport Advertising, Davis Marketing, and Elsevier (global publishing), before transitioning to private sector arts administration with California Ballet. In 2007, Rios established her consultancy Mina Communications while simultaneously launching her professional writing career. 

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During the Covid-19 pandemic, Rios decided to pursue a long-aspired ambition - since 2013 - to partake in the Climate Reality Project (CRP) Leadership Corps Training with former Vice President Al Gore. As a devout proponent of vital climate information and solutions, Rios became a contributing writer for the CRP - Bay Area Chapter from 2022-2024 and launched the MinaCommunity Column, a climate news source and initiative in December 2023.