The amazing Pop-Professor
In the Philippines and in other parts of the world, Andy Ferreria is known as the entrepreneurship guru. This popular professor is so well loved by his students at the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship of the Ateneo Graduate School. Aside from being on the board of many esteemed companies, he is also on the Board of Trustees of St. Paul Pasig and Ateneo de Zamboanga. His insights on business enterprise are priceless, treated with reverence by both the academe and the entrepreneurs who seek his help.
Recently, Teacher Andy, as we fondly call him, celebrated his 60th birthday. At the party, I bonded with his wife Agnes and three children Alexie, Acky and Anj who lovingly planned a 1960s theme party complete with his favorite Beatles music and Volkswagen Beetle memorabilia. I then discovered more than 60 reasons why Teacher Andy is an inspiration to his family.
To his wife Agnes he is a very loving, loyal and thoughtful husband. He loves to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Yet he goes beyond by never forgetting to celebrate that treasured date when she agreed to be his girlfriend.
Year after year, Agnes never fails to receive long-stemmed red and white roses on their anniversary as boyfriend-girlfriend. “The white rose, according to him, symbolizes that he will love me up until the day when everything turns white from gray,” said Agnes.
For eldest daughter Alexie, 32, who works for a non-profit organization, her father, whom everybody in their family calls “Pop,” is a total family man. She said that growing up, dinners at home were always about the joke of the day or the lesson in class or a current event. She added that dinners were often “debates, laugh fests or planning sessions.”
“When we were kids, Mom had to work on Saturdays, so Pop had to entertain us on Saturday mornings. Enter The Beatles, Four Tops, Temptations, Supremes, Marvin Gaye. Mom and Pop taught us the dances and all the terms of the ‘70s soiree scene — ‘maskipaps,’ ‘wall flower,’ ‘mixed party.’ We grew up with a real live jukebox and it exists to this day. This is our ultimate playlist during road trips. Now, even Indie, his first apo, loves the jukebox and says ‘Yeah, Yeah’ upon hearing the Beatles,” said Alexie.
“Pop is supportive and allows us to do what we want to do. He showed us what generosity is all about. Pop knows how to work for and celebrate life’s blessings,” said only son Acky, 29, a brand strategist slash graphic designer slash photographer.
“He also taught me valuable life skills like independence, navigation and interpretation. These he showed me through tips and tricks,” added Acky, who is also a design manager for Pascual Laboratories.
For her part, Anj, 27, KaffeCafe’s espresso chef and manager, said: “Of us three A-kids, I am the only one who experienced him as a full professor at work when I took my Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship. So, I was a witness to his never-ending anecdotes and jokes about our family that he’d share in class — that sometimes I feel that he forgets that I am one of the students, too.”
Anj added with a wink, “I never listened to my father’s pieces of advice with regard to how I manage my own cafe business. But I think it isn’t about the lessons in class that makes him an amazing Pop-Professor to me; it is the life lessons that he inserts in between case studies and power points.”
Each of the Ferreria children is grateful to their father for his love and perseverance in teaching them the many things that are important in life.
“He has constantly taught me to feed my passion and that I have to reinvent myself every day. Pop has also shared with me a lesson about perfection: ‘First, do it right. Then, do it better’,” Acky beams when recalling precious lessons he learned from his dad.
Teacher Andy, as his children attest, is always a visionary.
Alexie expounded on this: “Pop always had a thing for vision. He, as with my mom, always promotes the value of aligning current aspirations to an overall vision of oneself. This applied to all major decisions in my life — having a boyfriend (he’s now my husband!), choosing my first job, taking my Master’s degree abroad, tying the knot, getting our condo unit, having a child. All these have to — and they do — fit and nurture the vision I had of myself.”
Anj said her Pop is a cool dad because, despite his stature and the respect he gets from his students and business associates, he remains unassuming. He is a great fan of his youngest daughter’s concoctions. Whenever she bakes new pastries or formulates a new brew for her KaffeCaffe, he is the one who gets real excited about it and tells everyone how good it tastes. He is not one to impose anything on his children but rather to expose them to life and its full range of opportunities. He is tireless in creating ways for his family to live life to the fullest.
Anj added, “As a father, he is able to expose us through local and foreign travels, which made us learn all about planning and time management by ourselves. With this, he was able to instill in me and my siblings the value of money and frugality — yet still being generous as he never questioned what we shopped for in the end.”
Teacher Andy, his loved ones said, has always encouraged his children to do what they like.
Anj said, “Just like in class, it is passion that we live for. For him, it has never been about finding a job or building a career. As he would always point out in our own Filipino language, it is ‘Hanap-Buhay’ — we look for life in what we do.”
She added, “Even if he teaches business/entrepreneurship, he never imposed that we should have our own businesses. Rather he exposed us to what would make us realize what passion we want to live by with our chosen life decisions.”
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