Jorge Rodríguez’s parents were humble immigrants hailing from small villages nestled in the mountains of the Asturias region in Spain. In 1961, they left everything behind and embarked in the third class of boat named the Virginia de Churruca to emigrate to Puerto Rico in search of a better life. Providing their children with the best education possible was the only thing that mattered to them. Education, sacrifice and hard work became the tools through which Jorge Rodriguez made his dreams a reality.

 

After high school, Rodríguez pursued a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University in New York where he graduated with a 3.6 GPA. He was later admitted into the prestigious Harvard Business School, and recently became the first Puerto Rican to be awarded a fellowship at Harvard University’s Advance Leadership Initiative, a program designed for accomplished leaders with a track record of innovation and achievement in their professional career.

 

After working for over nine years in the industrial automation, instrumentation, and regulatory compliance field for Eli Lilly and Janssen in the United States and Puerto Rico, he founded PACIV in 1997 to provide integrated turnkey solutions to the life sciences industry in three areas: control systems, instrumentation and commissioning/qualification/validation services. Even though the three services are required in any automation project within the industry, he noticed that no service provider was able to offer all three under one roof. PACIV successfully grew from a one-man operation in 1997 to feature more than 110 associates today and locations in Puerto Rico, the US mainland (Indiana) and Europe (Ireland). The company has earned numerous recognitions over the years. In 2007, PACIV became the first and only Puerto Rican company to be the focus of a Harvard Business School case study taught as part of the “International Entrepreneurship” course. It has also received the prestigious Eli Lilly & Co. Global Supplier of the Year Award for its outstanding high-quality service and commitment and the 20 Best Employers in Puerto Rico Award.

 

While his company has found global success, Rodríguez remains deeply committed to Puerto Rico. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he spearheaded recovery efforts through the PACIV Foundation. On October 7, 2017, the foundation’s volunteers, while touring remote towns of Puerto Rico, were approached by the vice mayor of San Sebastián and the mother of Diego, an 8-year old boy suffering from a rare, life-threatening disease called propionic acidemia. Diego was the only child in Puerto Rico known to have such a condition and was on his last dosage of medicine, Propimex-1. Without another dosage for the day, Diego would have probably died by the next morning. Rodríguez secured a private jet and flew them to the US to seek the required medical assistance. This experience started the “Diego’s Relief Project,” and changed the foundation’s focus on saving lives, making sure situations like Diego’s do not happen again, with PACIV pledging USD 1 million.

 

Read the full interview with PACIV’s Jorge Rodríguez here