Dear Editor:
It’s close to the time of graduation for the San Benito High
School (Friday). SBHS deserves a great deal of credit for the
excellent education it gives to our students. We can run down a
list of hundreds of very successful alumni.
Dear Editor:
It’s close to the time of graduation for the San Benito High School (Friday). SBHS deserves a great deal of credit for the excellent education it gives to our students. We can run down a list of hundreds of very successful alumni.
Also, the American Field Service (AFS), which is active at the high school, deserves recognition for the special influence it exerts on the participants of this program.
Two alumni of SBHS and AFS are doing outstanding work around the world. Enrique Ortiz, son of Benjamin and Evangelina Ortiz of Hollister, is doing very special work for the U.S. government in Baghdad, Iraq. Enrique spent a year in Tunisia under AFS 1977-78 and graduated from SBHS in 1979.
He went on to Claremont College and graduated 1983. He also attended Sorbonne Institute in Paris 1981 for one semester.
After working around the world selling English school books, he went to Tufts, Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy and got his master’s degree in 1990.
With this preparation, he entered the United States Department of Commerce. He was a commissioned diplomat with the government.
He had multiple assignments around the world and was soon singled out as a “trouble shooter” with exceptional skills working in foreign countries.
He served in Bogota, Columbia with distinction. He was recently assigned to work in the embassy in Amman, Jordan as commercial counselor for American businesses working in Jordan. His work was again given special recognition.
When it was time for American reconstructive efforts to begin in Baghdad, they called upon Enrique. He was one of the first American government officers assigned there.
He is now on special assignment to the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Baghdad, Iraq.
A second SBHS alumni who was an AFS student from Udine, Italy, Mauro Ferrari, graduated from SBHS in 1977 and then returned to Italy.
He eventually returned to the University of California, Berkeley and obtained his master’s degree in engineering and then got his Ph.D. in engineering at Cal and became a professor there.
He then moved to Ohio State University and was put in as head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He has been doing advanced research in diabetes treatment. He also works for the National Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C., and is doing advanced research for them. He also works in Italy and many countries in Europe.
Mauro is a prized member of the administration at Ohio State University. His titles are many:
professor of biomedical engineering, professor of internal medicine, Division of Oncology professor of mechanical engineering, professor of materials science and Engineering, associate vice president, Health Sciences Technology and Commercialization, associate director, Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, president of the International Society of BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnology, editor-in-chief Biomedical Microdevices, BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnology.
Because of his advanced research in diabetes and cancer he will undoubtedly be a candidate for the Nobel Prize within five years.
Both of these students praise the education they received at SBHS and give special recognition to the influences that AFS had on them.
Perhaps there are hundreds more of the alumni of SBHS who have successful careers. Let us support our local high schools and the American Field Service because they really work.
Robert D. Quinn, MD
Del Rey Oaks,
former Hollister doctor
