Honoring Andrés Navarro '66

You were an exchange student. Right? one of them asked Navarro. Where did you go to high school?

Navarro replied with pride, Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia.

Wow! his friend exclaimed without hesitation, That’s one of the best.

Such a declaration was hardly news to Navarro, a native of Santiago, Chile, who attended Collegiate during the 1965-66 term through the American Field Service (AFS) program.

 

In fact, Navarro, one of the most respected and renowned entrepreneurs in Latin America, attributes much of his prodigious success to his experiences during those days 50 years ago when he graced the halls, classrooms, and playing fields along North Mooreland Road.

 

“It was great…great,” he said one day recently after learning that he would receive his alma mater’s Distinguished Alumni Award at Commencement June 10. “I remember everything perfectly. I’ve never forgotten the experience.”

 

When Navarro arrived, he spoke Spanish, his native language, and French, which he had taken for 12 years. His English was limited, but living with the family of Bill Gottwald and assimilating nicely into a welcoming student body enabled him to become quite fluent.

 

“I actually never found a single person to speak Spanish with in the year I spent over there,” he said earlier this spring via long-distance from Santiago. “I picked up English quickly and did very well. If not for that year, I would not have been able to do what I did (in business) if I didn’t understand and speak English.”

 

There were other benefits as well.

 

“For me, that was the most important time of my young age,” he continued. “In those days, the society in the U.S. and the society in my country were completely different. Americans had adopted so many technologies that we used frequently. I came from a conservative country, and the American society was much more diverse than ours. It was a great experience getting involved in this new way of looking at life. I discovered in the U.S. the ability to accept differences. I felt so well accepted. Collegiate was a great school. People were so nice to me. I discovered a world of friends.”

 

Navarro was an accomplished soccer player by the time he arrived at Collegiate. Until the late ‘70’s, the Cougars played the sport during the winter, and Navarro soon found himself auditioning for the football team despite never having seen a game and being only vaguely aware that the sport even existed.

 

“I remember the coach for the football team was the same guy as the coach for the soccer team: Grover Jones,” he said. “The day after I got there, they took me to the field and asked me to kick with the American football. It was so easy to kick sideways. In those days, the other guys kicked differently. The first thing I did was become a kicker for the American football team. I was never a long kicker. I was all right for extra points.”

 

Back then, high school soccer was hardly the finesse sport it is today. In fact, the mind conjures images of less-than-artistic free-for-alls contested by less-than-skilled practitioners on rain-soaked, muddy, grassless fields under an overcast sky.

 

Navarro brought creativity and craftiness previously unseen. Teammates (and opponents) quickly realized that he was in a class by himself. During the Cougars’ 13-game season, he scored 20 goals.

 

After his transcendent year at Collegiate, Navarro returned home and earned a civil engineering degree from Universidad Catlica de Chile.  In 1974, he founded Sonda SA, which, with 10,000 employees in 10 countries, became the largest multinational IT services provider in Latin America. He held the position of President and CEO for 36 years. He has also served as a director of numerous companies including SalfaCorp SA, Chilevision, Viña Santa Rita, the Teleton Foundation, University San Sebastian, and LAN Airlines SA. He has been widely honored for his creativity, entrepreneurship, innovative spirit, leadership, vision, integrity, credibility, and social responsibility.

 

Over the years, Navarro has stayed in touch with his Collegiate friends, especially the Gottwald family, and has visited the campus on several occasions when his travels to the United States allowed.

 

“Andrés has been part of our family since the summer of 1965,” said Bill Gottwald. “We bonded over basketball in the back yard and listening to records together in the room I shared with my brother.

“At some time I began to realize Andrés and his company were becoming very successful. His business became global before anyone here was talking about globalization.

“Many times when he was in the US, he would arrange his schedule to stop by to visit us. It seems like each visit I would learn about another venture from aquaculture to airlines, hospitals to medical devices, pre-Columbian and Chilean art, and even a talk-show host.It’s been a great experience and lots of fun to be friends with Andrés and his family over all these years, especially with the added dimension of knowing our high school friend has been a business professional along the lines of Bill Gates and Ross Perot in the competitive and global information tech industry.” 

 

Navarro will be on hand at Collegiate’s graduation ceremony to receive his Distinguished Alumni accolade, share the experience with friends, and reflect on the past.

 

“I’ve flown up many, many times to the big cities in the US like New York and LA,” he said. “The real US is places like Richmond. It was so perfect and nice. I love the people at Collegiate. This is a huge honor.”

                  -- Weldon Bradshaw