I first learned of Hector in 1999 through the SPSSX mailing list and had taken the opportunity during a previous visit to Buenos Aires to look him up and introduce myself. Hector is close to my age, with close-cut gray hair and an immaculately trimmed goatee—a cultivated man of the world and a resident of one its great cities. His dignified bearing and precise English—spoken with the most refined Spanish accent—speaks to the nature of his primary work as an economic consultant to the United Nations. When on assignment, Hector travels the world, often to impoverished and war torn areas such as Afghanistan, to help solve the economic problems of emerging countries. So I wasn’t surprised when he told me, “The irregularities of my work life put stress on me.”

Hector was born in Azul, Argentina, a prosperous city in the midst of the rich Argentine plains, 200 miles southwest of Buenos Aires. His father was a journalist working in one of the four dailies that at the time were published in Azul, in spite of its rather small size.

At age 18, Hector moved to Buenos Aires to enter the Buenos Aires Catholic University, where he graduated cum laude in 1968 as a sociologist.

Hector’s family were of Italian descent both on his father's and his mother's side. His parents were born in Argentina but his grandparents were all Italian, so he learned a great deal of Italian as a child, and was linked to Italy all his life. He was also an Italian citizen, since Italy grants citizenship to any child of Italians even living abroad, and Italy and Argentina have an agreement permitting double citizenship.

At the age of 29, he used his dual citizenship to his advantage when, to his good fortune he got a fellowship from the Italian government to study economics in Italy. He was given paid leave from Salta University in Northwestern Argentina, where he was teaching and conducting research, took his young, pregnant wife and son and moved to Italy, where his second son was born in 1975. So there he was in Italy, with his wife and two young sons, when a murderous military regime was imposed by a coup d'etat in Argentina, followed by the tragic disappearance of thousands of young men. His university post and salary were suspended and he had to leave Italy where, at the time, he was pursuing graduate studies in Economics at the University of Bologna. It was too dangerous to return to Argentina, so he settled in Lima, Peru, where he had a short consultancy with the United Nations and soon found an academic position at the Universidad del Pacífico, a small business school in Lima with an excellent faculty and ample means.