Eugenio Garza Sada
Eugenio Garza Sada (January 11, 1892 – September 17, 1973) was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist of Jewish descent who is best known for founding the ITESM in 1943.
Garza Sada was born to Isaac Garza and Consuelo Sada. His father, Isaac Garza with other enterpeneurs founded Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc, now Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, in late 1800s. Garza Sada's family was on a self-exile during the Mexican Revolution for security reasons, they moved on to the United States. During those years their major income was reduced due to Cerveceria Cuauthemoc wasn't very profitable on the Mexican Revolution period. As consequence, Garza Sada family was forced to work for a living. Garza Sada worked in a movie theather, and in a store. In the [[United States] Garza Sada studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating in 1917.
As soon as the family were able to return to Mexico from Boston, Garza Sada began working at the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, a major beer producer in Monterrey, Mexico. His first job there was in the Statistics Department. After his father, Isaac Garza, died Garza Sada was named the company General Director. During his management, he started a huge number of businesses to support beer production, such as a glass company (to make the bottles for the beer), which later become Vitro. He also opened Grafo Regia, a business which produced the stickers and boxes to pack the beer bottles.
In 1943, along with a number of other prominent businessmen, Garza Sada founded ITESM, that is, the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, with the hope of producing a university with strong principles and high academic performance. Garza Sada's inspiration to found the ITESM was the MIT since he tought that a Institute of Technology was better than university to get well educated people for their businesses (quotation needed).
In 1973, he died during a failed kidnapping attempt, leaving his wife and eight children.
Today, he is recognized as a renown and visionary person with strong principles and social conscience in Monterrey, and the major street that passes by the university he founded, ITESM or Monterrey Tech, bears his name.