Eugenio Méndez Docurro

Eugenio Méndez Docurro

Eugenio Méndez Docurro (born April 17, 1923 in Veracruz , Veracruz state ; † August 23, 2015 ) was a Mexican engineer and politician of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), who was SCT ( Secretarío de Comunicaciones y Transportes ) was in the government of President Luis Echeverría Álvarez .

Life

Studies and General Director of the IPN

After attending elementary and secondary school, Méndez Docurro began studying communications engineering at the National Polytechnic Institute IPN ( Instituto Politécnico Nacional ) , which he graduated as an engineer in 1947 . He completed a subsequent postgraduate course at Harvard University with a Master of Science (M.Sc.). This was followed by attending further courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other teaching institutes in France and the United Kingdom .

After his return to Mexico he was first Vice-General Director and then in 1959 General Director of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. During his activity as General Director of the IPN, he was the initiator of the establishment of the local technical schools for physics and mathematics, for nursing and the graduate school. He was instrumental in promoting programs and facilities for technical education as well as scientific and technological research in the 20th century. At the same time, together with the former General Director of the IPN, Manuel Cerrillo Valdivia, he promoted national and international cooperation in the polytechnical field, especially with MIT.

Due to his good connections to politicians such as the then President Adolfo López Mateos , he initiated the establishment of the Center for Research and Higher Studies CINVESTAV (Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados) at the IPN in 1961 . After Manuel Cerrillo Valdivia had refused the offer of director of the CINVESTAV, Méndez Docurro reached after talks with the Minister of Public Education, Jaime Torres Bodet , that President López Mateos appointed the physiologist Arturo Rosenblueth as the first director of the CINVESTAV. He had studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and also at Harvard University and previously worked at the National Institute of Cardiology (Instituto Nacional de Cardiología) .

Undersecretary of State and Director General of CONACYT

After finishing his work as Director General of the IPN, Méndez Docurro became Undersecretary of State for Communication in the Ministry of Communication and Transport in 1962. He kept this position until 1965 and was thus deputy to the then Minister for Communication and Transport, Walter Cross Buchanan, and then from 1964 to José Antonio Padilla Segura . The National Space Commission CONEE (Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior) was founded in 1962 by a presidential decree , of which he was a member by virtue of his office as Undersecretary of State. This worked closely with the USA, Argentina and Brazil in the fields of meteorology and other topics .

From 1965 to 1970 he was executive spokesman of the National Institute for Scientific Research INIC (Instituto Nacional de la Investigación Científica) , the predecessor organization of the National Council for Science and Technology CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) founded in 1970 . There he was involved in a committee for science and technology together with the well-known physicist Manuel Sandoval Vallarta . At the INIC, he led the work of various commissions to which a total of 800 scientists and technologists belonged.

After CONACYT was founded on December 29, 1970, he became its first general director and held this position until he was replaced by Gerardo Bueno Zirion in 1973. In this position, he promoted cooperation with UNAM and the IPN as well as other university institutions such as the Mexican Academy of Sciences AMC (Academia Mexicana de Ciencias) , but also with various governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Minister and Director General of the IMC

Almost four weeks earlier, on December 1, 1970, Méndez Docurro was appointed as the successor to José Antonio Padilla Segura by President Luis Echeverría Álvarez himself as Minister of Communications and Transport (Secretario de Comunicaciones y Transportes) and held this ministerial office for six years until the 30th November 1976. He was succeeded by Emilio Mújica Montoya . During his tenure as minister, he opened the laboratories of the National Space Commission in 1974, which, however, was dissolved after President José López Portillo took office .

In 1989 Méndez Docurro took over the role of General Director of the Mexican Institute for Communication IMC (Instituto Mexicano de Comunicaciones) . This organization engaged with other institutions on the development of projects and the design of communication satellites and national technologies. From this work, among other things, the communications satellites Solidarid 1 and Solidaridad 2 of the satellite operator Satmex emerged in 1993 and 1994 . He held the position of General Director until the IMC was dissolved in 1997.

On March 12, 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados . On April 18, 2013, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, he was appointed honorary member of the Academia de Ingeniería .

Web links

• Eugenio Méndez Docurro, magno creador de tecnosaber . In: La Crónica of October 1, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Muere Eugenio Méndez Docurro, the primer director del Conacyt
2. ^ Eugenio Méndez Docurro: El Politécnico a 50 años de su gestión
3. ↑ CINVESTAV 50 años: Origen y Razones del Cinvestav ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ TESTIGOS DE UNA HISTORIA. Conacyt, promotor de una masa crítica nacional
5. ↑ DOCTORADO HONORIS CAUSA AL INGENIERO EUGENIO MÉNDEZ DOCURRO ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: JOURNALMEX Periodistas de México of March 10, 2010 
6. ^ Palabras del Ing.Méndez Docurro - Academia de Ingeniería