Alfonso Dávila Ortiz: Difference between revisions

{{Spanishfamily name hatnote|Dávila|Ortiz|lang=Spanish}}

| birth_place = [[Bogota, Colombia|BogotaBogotá]], [[Colombia]]

'''Alfonso Dávila Ortiz''' (born 4 April 1922 – 10 November 2015) iswas a Colombian civil engineer, diplomat, businessman and forester, former ambassador to Spain and Kuwait, Chargé d'Affaires in the United States of America, Governor of the Province of [[Cundinamarca Department|Cundinamarca]], President of the Colombian Banker’s Association, twice President of the Colombian Association of Engineers and its lifelong President, Councilor of the city of Bogotá, lifelong President of Bogotá’s Jockey Club and member of Colombia’s National Council of Public Works.

Alfonso Dávila Ortiz was born in [[Bogotá]], [[Colombia]] to [[:es:José Domingo Dávila Pumarejo|José Domingo Dávila Pumarejo]] and Paulina Ortiz on 4 April 1922. On 22 April 1944 he married Gladys Silva ChereauChéreau, daughter of Colombian General Miguel Silva Plazas and Bertha ChereauChéreau. They had eight children, six of whom survive. He died peacefully surrounded by his family on 10 November 2015 in Bogotá.

Following the [http://www.eeb.com.co/en/company/history sale in 1926] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818100001/http://www.eeb.com.co/en/company/history |date=2016-08-18 }} to the Municipality of Bogotá of the Compañía Nacional de Electricidad that he had founded (which merged with another private firm to create the nationalised [[:es:Empresa de Energía de Bogotá|Empresas Unidas de Energia]]),<ref>{{cite book|last=Rodriguez|first=Juan Camilo|title=Historia de la Empresa de Energía de Bogotá - Vol. 1|year=1999|publisher=EEB|location=Bogotá|isbn=958-616-437-3|url=http://www.eeb.com.co/en/company/history|access-date=2014-03-15|archive-date=2016-08-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818100001/http://www.eeb.com.co/en/company/history|url-status=dead}}</ref> his father took his family to Europe (Brussels, Paris and Eastbourne) for five years. Dávila Ortiz was subsequently educated in the traditional Gimnasio Moderno of Bogotá, and graduated at 16. He completed a degree in Civil Engineering at Bogotá’s [[Universidad Nacional]] 5 years later. While running a successful construction businesses he subsequently completed a postgraduate degree in Economics at Bogotá’s [[University of Los Andes (Colombia)|Universidad de los Andes]] (1963), an MSc in Marketing in Spain (1982) and a postgraduate degree in Business Management at [[INALDE]] in Bogotá (1986). On 21 April 1961 the Universidad Distrital in Bogotá awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Forestry.{{citation needed |date=March 2014}}

Dávila Ortiz started his professional career in housing construction in Bogotá, subsequently moving into n construction of public infrastructure in the 1950s and early 1960s, mainly in Colombia’s Atlantic Coast. As CEO of private construction firms he had co-founded, he oversaw the completion of the Ciénaga-Barranquilla and Santa Marta-Riochacha highways, the Ernesto Cortissoz Airport in [[Barranquilla]], the Simón Bolívar Airport in [[Santa Marta]] and the Atlántico Railway (Santa Rosa-El Paso section). Such interventions were seen as important propellers of development of Colombia's Caribbean region, as the physical isolation of the region from the centre of the country had historically been a major source of concern to national and local decision-makers and business entrepreneurs.<ref>{{cite book|last=Posada Carbó|first=Eduardo|title=El Caribe Colombiano. Una Historia Regional (1870-1950)|year=1998|publisher=El Ancora Editores|location=Bogotá|isbn=958-96201-9-1}}</ref> In the 1940s he was one of a number of young Colombian professionals who were gradually taking over the design and construction of major buildings and infrastructure by local firms following the departure of mainly US companies, and given further impulse following the recommendations of a number of reports, such as the World Bank's 'Currie Mission' of 1950.<ref>{{cite book|last=Palacios|first=Marco|title=Entre la Legitimidad y la Violencia. Colombia 1875-1994|year=1995|publisher=Norma|location=Bogotá|isbn=9580430985}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Pachón|first=Alvaro|title=La Infraestructura de Transporte en Colombia durante el Siglo XX|year=2006|publisher=Fondo de Cultura Económica|location=Bogotá|isbn=9583801364}}</ref>

As a diplomat he has represented Colombia firstly at the White House as Plenipotentiary Minister (Chargé d'Affaires) at the [[Ambassador of Colombia to the United States|Colombian Embassy]] in Washington DC in 1975-1977, and later as Colombian Ambassador to Spain and Kuwait (in a non-resident capacity) in 1981-1983.

He has beenwas twice President of the [[:es:Sociedad Colombiana de Ingenieros|Society of Colombian Engineers]] (1960 and 1961).<ref>{{cite web|last=SCI|title=Presidentes 1887-2014, Sociedad Colombiana de Ingenieros|url=http://www.sci.org.co/Quienes-somos/Miembros-destacados/Presidentes.aspx|publisher=SCI|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327221443/http://www.sci.org.co/Quienes-somos/Miembros-destacados/Presidentes.aspx|archivedate=2014-03-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gaitán Cortés|first=Jorge|title=Democracia y Valorización. Extractos de un Debate en el Concejo de Bogotá|year=1960|publisher=Private publisher|location=Bogotá|author2=Enrique Peñalosa Camargo}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Alan|title=Metropolitan Latin America: The Challenge and the Response|year=1978|publisher=Sage|location=London|pages=87–126|editor=Wayne A. Cornelius|chapter=Bogotá: Politics, Planning, and the Crisis of Lost Opportunities}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Dávila|first=Julio D|title=Planificación y Política en Bogotá: La Vida de Jorge Gaitán Cortés|year=2000|publisher=Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá|location=Bogotá|isbn=9588109027}}</ref> He was founder and President of the [http://camacol.co Construction Chamber of Colombia] (1967-1972), where he lobbied the Colombian government to include construction as an economic sector in the national accounts.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vargas Caicedo|first=Hernando|title=Cincuenta años en la construcción de Colombia. Camacol 1957-2007|year=2007|publisher=Camacol|location=Bogotá|isbn=9589841309}}</ref>

He was President of the [https://web.archive.org/web/20140322045619/http://www.asobancaria.com/portal/page/portal/Asobancaria/inicio/ Bankers' Association of Colombia] (1978-1981), acting Director of Bouwcentrum Colombia (1969), member of the Board of Directors of Bogotá’s [[ETB (company)|Telecommunications Company]] (ETB), Colombia’s National Railways, [[:es:Universidad de la sabana|Universidad de la sabana]], founder of the INALDE Business School<ref>{{cite web|last=INALDE|title=Fundadores del INALDE|url=http://www.inalde.edu.co/nosotros/quienes-somos/|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219040032/http://www.inalde.edu.co/nosotros/quienes-somos/|archivedate=2014-02-19}}</ref> and President and Board Member of Bogotá’s elite [https://archive.today/20140315235955/http://www.jockeyclub.com.co/history Jockey Club],.<ref>{{cite web|last=Contacto Latino|title=Latino Book Awards 2011|url=http://contacto-latino.com/ideas-latinas/la-columna/643/international-latino-book-awards-2011-winners-announced/|access-date=2014-03-15|archive-date=2014-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140325013941/http://contacto-latino.com/ideas-latinas/la-columna/643/international-latino-book-awards-2011-winners-announced/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

He has published on national issues of urban land reform, tax reform, the construction industry, and forestry, drawing on his experience of nearly six decades of farming and reforesting farmland he purchased in 1950 in the [[Magdalena Medio]] region of Colombia.

''La Reforma Administrativa de Cundinamarca'', 6 volumes, Imprenta Departamental, 1974.

''La Reforestación en Colombia, Visión de Futuro'', Konrad Adenauer Stiftung-Fedemaderas, Bogotá, 2007. {{ISBN |978-958-44-2247-7}}

''El Jockey Club que yo conocí'', Villegas Editores, Bogotá, 2010. {{ISBN |978-958-8293-73-8}} (awarded first prize in the History/Politics category in New York on 25 May 2011 at The International Latino Book Awards).

''Confidencias a mis hijos y a mis nietos'', Villegas Editores, Bogotá, 2014. {{ISBN |978-958-8836-17-1}}

[[Category:Colombian male writers]]

[[Category:20th-century Colombian businesspeople]]

[[Category:ColombianPeople Romanfrom CatholicsBogotá]]