Eight engineers who became tycoons & why engineering is key to progress

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.  — James A. Michener

Our Philippine economy needs more engineers not only for skilled and highly-paid overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), but also to be catalysts of economic modernization and exponents of fundamental reforms. I said as much at a speech last Oct. 26 at the huge and successful annual national convention of the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers (PSME) at SMX Convention Center.

We should lobby for and support improvement of better engineering, science, math and English education nationwide if we are serious about faster Philippine economic development.

Government and businesses should also invest more in research and development or R&D like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and Israel for true socio-economic progress. “Unesco recommends that we spend at least one percent of the country’s total GDP on R&D,” Senator Ed Angara recently said. “However, our government spent a meager 0.12 percent in 2009. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

Another challenge I proposed PSME delegates is to consider the need for more engineers to enter politics in order to truly and fundamentally reform our society. I believe engineers are more analytical, more mathematical, scientific and thus tend to be better problem solvers.

Two credible presidents of the Philippines were engineers by education — President Fidel V. Ramos and the late popular President Ramon Magsaysay, who studied mechanical engineering. Some of the PSME delegates from Naga City told me their former outstanding Mayor Jessee Robredo is also a mechanical engineering and industrial management engineering graduate from La Salle, and a Harvard alumnus too; he is now the incorruptible secretary of the Department of Interior & Local Government (DILG). 

If security guards, balut (duck embryo) vendors and leftist radicals can claim seats in Congress with party-list groups, I hope civic-minded and reformist engineers — whether mechanical, industrial, civil or otherwise — can also do so and help change the Philippine future.

Reformist Leaders Behind China’s ‘Economic Miracle’ All Engineers

When I recently told billionaire Roberto “Bobby” Ongpin that China’s leaders of the past 30 years who rose in the era of visionary Deng Xiaoping and who led the world’s fastest-growing major economy were all engineers, Ongpin was surprised. He admires former China Premier Zhu Rongji and thought he was an economist. No, I said former Premier Zhu Rongji graduated with an electrical engineering degree from Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University.

What about China’s other pragmatic and strong-willed leaders? President Hu Jintao is a hydraulic engineering graduate of Tsinghua, his predecessor President Jiang Zemin was an electrical engineering graduate of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, while next year the new president of China will be Xi Jinping, a chemical engineering graduate also of Tsinghua University.

China’s incumbent Premier Wen Jiabao studied engineering and geology at Beijing Institute of Geology; a former premier, Li Peng, was electrical engineering graduate of Moscow Power Engineering Institute; and the current China National People’s Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo is an electron tube engineering graduate of Tsinghua University.

Maybe we should elect engineers, too, as our leaders, not just lawyers and economists?

Eight Engineers Who Became Tycoons

In my extemporaneous speech at the PSME, I also said engineering seems to be a good educational background for a career in business either as an entrepreneur or a professional executive. I urged all my nephews not to study entrepreneurship or business in school, but engineering.

Some engineering graduates who became tycoons and whom I cited in my PSME speech:

Geronimo Z. Velasco. The late mechanical engineer Ronnie Velasco was winner of the 1977 Management Man of the Year Award, first president of Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC). He was chairman of Republic Glass Holdings Corp. which used to own the pioneer factory supplying 70 percent of Philippine glass requirements for home and building construction since 1956. The firm sold its shares in Republic-Asahi Glass Corp. to its Japanese partner Asahi Glass in 2001.

Velasco was a protégé of the smart yet controversial American Jewish self-made tycoon Harry Stonehill, who tasked Velasco in the late 1950s with building the Philippines’ pioneer glass manufacturing factory. Velasco also served as energy minister from 1978 to 1986, implementing President Marcos’s then strategic goal of reducing Philippine dependence on imported oil. I had met him a few years ago when his friend SM founder Henry Sy invited me to five hours dinner at Banana Leaf resto of the newly-opened Podium mall.

2. Diosdado “Dado” Banatao. The Filipino high-tech entrepreneur and innovator in Silicon Valley, California is an electrical engineering cum laude graduate from the Mapua Institute of Technology with a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford University. I met him in California in 2001. His cousin, Dr. Orlando “Orly” Banatao Molina, is now a candidate for president of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), which he hopes to upgrade, similar to Asia’s best schools like the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

3. Lucio C. Tan. This science and history buff studied chemical engineering at Far Eastern University as a working student. He said he attended night and Sunday classes. The self-made tycoon wasn’t able to finish his degree due to work, but he reads and studies nonstop up to now.

4. David Consunji. Ranked by Forbes magazine this year as the fifth richest billionaire in the Philippines with US$1.9 billion in estimated net worth, this UP civil engineering graduate is big in construction with DMCI, also infrastructure, real estate, mining and power.

5. Francis Chua. Henry Lim Bon Liong of Sterling Paper Group told me that I should add his batchmate Francis Chua to this list of tycoons who are engineers, because Chua is an industrial engineering graduate of his same batch 1972. Chua is president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce & Industry (PCCI) and he hopes to construct PCCI’s new headquarters building in the Manila Bay area. Chua said a major thrust of PCCI is to encourage more proliferation of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) nationwide for faster Philippine economic growth. Chua is also former member of the UP Board of Regents.

6. Ramon S. Ang. This mechanical engineering graduate of Far Eastern University is now the dynamic boss who is transforming San Miguel Corp. from a beer giant into a diversified conglomerate with huge investments in infrastructure, energy and other fields. Due to Ang’s bold strategic reforms, beer and foods now constitute only 20 percent of San Miguel’s total businesses.

7. Henry Lim Bon Liong. This mechanical engineering graduate of UP batch 1972 is a leader in Philippine paper products with Sterling Paper Group. In recent years, Lim has become more known as a pioneer of hybrid rice technology with his SL Agritech Corp. which seeks to promote Philippine rice self-sufficiency. He is now one of the vice presidents of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII).     

8. Bayani Fernando. The former Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman and Marikina mayor, is a mechanical engineering graduate of Mapua. Before entering politics, he was founder of the BF Group of Companies, with construction, steel, manufacturing and real estate businesses. BF built the country’s tallest building, top shopping malls, industrial and residential subdivisions and other facilities. Like Consunji, BF is also a former secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways. BF once told me that engineers like him “are more practical and prefer to focus more on solving problems.”

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