Francisco Garcia

Francisco García is an Engineering and Management Consultant at the Dept. of Economic Development of Puerto Rico as the Regional Economic Competitive Officer for EDA projects. He also consults with PRIMEX, the Manufacturing Extension Center for Puerto Rico. He works in areas of entrepreneurship, strategy development, improving workforce training and improving manufacturing processes. He directed PRiMEX's Business Continuity Program, where Business Continuity Plans were made to 322 small and medium-sized companies in Puerto Rico. He also directed the Rural program of PRiMEX sponsored by the Federal Agriculture Dept, interacting with a team of project managers with numerous small businesses in municipalities located in the central and mountainous areas of the island. He also co-facilitated the Earthquake mediation project covering 33 Municipalities Previously, he was Executive Vice President of the Puerto Rico Manufacturing Association (PRMA). PRMA is Puerto Rico's largest private sector organization representing more than 1,000 companies. Francisco participated with the Private Sector Coalition, an entity that encouraged the development of key economic development initiatives for Puerto Rico in Washington DC. He participated in numerous visits to Washington for three years promoting the economic development of the island. Francisco has more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing, with seventeen years as General Manager at Pall Biomedical and General Manager at CibaVision a division of Novartis. In both organizations, he led a process of organization transformation to improve the quality improvement process, competitiveness and the organizational culture. He has extensive experience in business development, having led two business incubators and talent development projects at INTECO, a regional economic development alliance. As Vice President of Operations at INTECO he managed a NIST project for the installation of a broadband network in the region. This project improved workers' technical capabilities, business development and STEM student projects. Francisco is an Industrial Engineer graduated from the UPR Mayaguez Campus and holds a Master's degree in Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He is a Professional Licensed Engineer. He has twice been recognized as Distinguished Industrial Engineer of Puerto Rico, in 1983 and 1987. In 2002 he recieved the Héctor Jiménez Juarbe Award for contributing to Economic and Manufacturing Development iPR He received from Echar Pa Lante “Pillar de Empresarismo