Alfredo Miron entering Guatemalan office
Alfredo Miron entering Guatemalan office
lvaro Colom will be sworn in as the new president of Guatemala on Jan. 14. A key leader in the new administration will be Alfredo Miron. A fresh foliage grower-exporter, Alfredo Miron may be best known in the U.S. produce and floral industry for being, in the 1990s, the first international member on the board of the Newark, DE-based Produce Marketing Association.
In an interview with The Produce News on Nov. 6, Mr. Miron said that he has been a lifelong friend of Mr. Colom, as the two attended school together in Guatemala City.
On Nov. 5, The New York Times described "lvaro Colom as "a gawky policy wonk and businessman who made fighting poverty his campaign's centerpiece." He defeated Otto P?rez Molina, a former general, whose platform was to use an iron fist to solve crime problems.
Two years ago, Mr. Colom asked Mr. Miron to campaign throughout Guatemala to communicate a plan to develop the country with a focus on the untapped potential of the indigenous people who make up 66 percent of Guatemala's population.
Mr. Miron said that Guatemala has 3,000 communities with 24 distinct ethnic groups, and each has its own language. Twenty-two of these groups are people of Mayan descent, and there are separate Xinca and Garifuna communities. Mr. Miron acknowledged that it will be a much greater project to complete than a four-year presidential term will afford, but the Colom administration will launch a project to educate this group -- by first teaching them Spanish -- while also providing roads and electricity to their isolated communities to help make them productive citizens in the national economy. "We will fight poverty by making richness. We can not fight poverty with more poverty," Mr. Miron said.
Mr. Miron's message throughout Guatemala was apparently highly successful, as Mr. Colom carried 21 of 22 Guatemalan departments, or states. The only department not carried by Mr. Colom was Guatemala City.
Mr. Miron told The Produce News that his specific role in the new administration has yet to be decided. He may fill the newly created minister to the presidency post, or a more traditional cabinet post, perhaps secretary of agriculture.
Mr. Miron's own firm, Corporaci?n Tak S.A., is among the world's larger leather leaf fern exporters. He also exports other greens that he noted "are always in flower arrangements. We specialize in that." He has developed the European and Japanese markets but said he was making his first export to the United States, via Continental Floral Greens in San Antonio, TX, the week of Nov. 12.
Mr. Miron said that as PMA's first international board member, he was also the first to invite Mexicans, Europeans and Asians to become involved in the association's international development.
He has faced personal tragedy in the last decade, foremost the death of his only son. "After all that has happened to me, I think I am blessed. After my boy's death, people thought I could not stand up and go. I am going. I still have two daughters and my wife." At a crisis point in his life, his indigenous employees gave his family a presentation of song and a mass. He was told, "Those people are your sons now." After campaigning and meeting people all over Guatemala, he said, "Now I have more sons. I think I have enough to move ahead."
In an interview with The Produce News on Nov. 6, Mr. Miron said that he has been a lifelong friend of Mr. Colom, as the two attended school together in Guatemala City.
On Nov. 5, The New York Times described "lvaro Colom as "a gawky policy wonk and businessman who made fighting poverty his campaign's centerpiece." He defeated Otto P?rez Molina, a former general, whose platform was to use an iron fist to solve crime problems.
Two years ago, Mr. Colom asked Mr. Miron to campaign throughout Guatemala to communicate a plan to develop the country with a focus on the untapped potential of the indigenous people who make up 66 percent of Guatemala's population.
Mr. Miron said that Guatemala has 3,000 communities with 24 distinct ethnic groups, and each has its own language. Twenty-two of these groups are people of Mayan descent, and there are separate Xinca and Garifuna communities. Mr. Miron acknowledged that it will be a much greater project to complete than a four-year presidential term will afford, but the Colom administration will launch a project to educate this group -- by first teaching them Spanish -- while also providing roads and electricity to their isolated communities to help make them productive citizens in the national economy. "We will fight poverty by making richness. We can not fight poverty with more poverty," Mr. Miron said.
Mr. Miron's message throughout Guatemala was apparently highly successful, as Mr. Colom carried 21 of 22 Guatemalan departments, or states. The only department not carried by Mr. Colom was Guatemala City.
Mr. Miron told The Produce News that his specific role in the new administration has yet to be decided. He may fill the newly created minister to the presidency post, or a more traditional cabinet post, perhaps secretary of agriculture.
Mr. Miron's own firm, Corporaci?n Tak S.A., is among the world's larger leather leaf fern exporters. He also exports other greens that he noted "are always in flower arrangements. We specialize in that." He has developed the European and Japanese markets but said he was making his first export to the United States, via Continental Floral Greens in San Antonio, TX, the week of Nov. 12.
Mr. Miron said that as PMA's first international board member, he was also the first to invite Mexicans, Europeans and Asians to become involved in the association's international development.
He has faced personal tragedy in the last decade, foremost the death of his only son. "After all that has happened to me, I think I am blessed. After my boy's death, people thought I could not stand up and go. I am going. I still have two daughters and my wife." At a crisis point in his life, his indigenous employees gave his family a presentation of song and a mass. He was told, "Those people are your sons now." After campaigning and meeting people all over Guatemala, he said, "Now I have more sons. I think I have enough to move ahead."
