Harry Brautigam

Harry Brautigam (October 29, 1948 Bluefields, Nicaragua – May 30, 2008 Tegucigalpa, Honduras) was a Nicaraguan economist, banker and academic.

Harry Brautigam

Biography

Dr. Harry Emil Brautigam, son of Harry and Lucille Brautigam, was born and raised in Bluefields, Nicaragua. He received a Bachelors in Business Administration in Guadalajara, Mexico. Harry was then awarded a British Council Scholarship and went on to receive a post-graduate diploma in Manchester, England. He finalized his master's degree in Economics at the University of Leeds and later received a Ph.D in Agriculture Economics from the University of Illinois in the United States.

While abroad, he met Marilyn Gerald whom he later married in Nicaragua in 1976.

[My name is Guillermo A Noffal now living in Las Vegas, Nevada. I knew Harry in Nicaragua. I was a Consultant for the Dirección de Planificación Nacional from July 1976 to the end of 1978. He was the Vice Director at that time. I also knew his wife. In 1977 he and his wife took me and two of my children, jointly with two teachers of the American School where his wife used to work, on a boat made from a single tree trunk from the port of Mohin in Costa Rica, near Puerto Limón, to Barra del Colorado in northern Costa Rica. They were on their way to visit Harry's father and mother who had a big farm on Indio River in Southern Nicaragua. I left Nicaragua in 1979 and maintained correspondence with Harry while he was working for Bank of America.]

They had their first child, Harry Emil Brautigam, in Managua, Nicaragua in 1978. Soon after, they returned to the United States where Harry accepted a position as a Professor of Economics at the University of Delaware. In 1981, their second child, Claire, was born. They moved to Boston, Massachusetts where Harry commenced his banking career at the Bank of Boston and welcomed their last child, Anna, in 1984.

A year later, the family moved to Miami where Harry accepted a position at Bank of America. They were relocated to San Francisco for four years, later returning to Miami. Harry made another professional move to Barclays Bank in 1988. On September 1, 2003, Harry Brautigam was elected President of the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he and his wife resided for five years. He was the first elected President of the BCIE,( the result of an international search of qualified candidates). Through his leadership, BCIE was able to reach important achievements that helped to position the institution as the main provider of resources for the region. It was a fulfillment of a life goal to be able to use his knowledge and experience to help improve his home country, Nicaragua, as well as the rest of Central America. He was decorated by the Colombian government and awarded the Order of Ruben Dario by the Nicaraguan government.

Harry Brautigam served as President of BCIE until his death on May 30, 2008, as a result of the TACA Flight 390 airliner crash at the Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.[1]

References

1. "Honduras crash forces diversions". BBC News. 2008-05-31. Retrieved 2008-06-29.