COMELEC Declares Jim Gonzalvo UPBSI President 2020-2022
Aug 21, 2020
Brothers All,
Lets congratulate and welcome Brod Jim Gonzalvo
(jagonzo@aol.com), UPBSI President for 2020-2022. Three cheers for him and
outgoing UPBSI Prez Aman. And congratulations once again to the 22 new Board of
Directors. God bless us all.
Brod Jim Gonzalvo belongs to UPLB Batch '70B,
"Protest".
He migrated to the US in May 1976. Served in the US
Air Force for 21 years and retired with a rank of Major. While in the USAF, he
served as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Launch Officer and later
on as an Acquisition Officer for the procurement of USAF weapons systems such as
the F-16 fighter and the Advance Cruise Missile.
He obtained his MBA from University of North Dakota
in 1988. After retiring from military service, he worked as a Contracts Manager
for General Dynamics Information Technology for another 20 years eventually
retiring in Dec 2017.
He was elected as the President of the Philippine
American Society of Greater Dayton for two consecutive terms.
He is married to the former Teresa Onrubia Ignacio
from Pasay City and a registered nurse graduate of St. Paul Manila. They
currently reside in Virginia Beach, VA. They have two daughters and four grand
children.
In his spare time, he enjoys going to the gym, doing
Tai Chi and photography.
Cheers,
Fred Young, UPD'66
COMELEC Chair
About Fred:
Brod Fred is a retired professor at the University of Saskatchewan, in Regina,
Saskatchewan, Canada. He has MA (2) and PhD in Economics (UP Phils.; Williams
College, Mass.).
Prior to his retirement in May 2015, he was the Director, Economic and Fiscal
Policy, Ministry of Finance and Director in Concurrent capacity, Saskatchewan
Board of Statistics.
He was also Senior Vice President at the Philippine
National Bank before he migrated to Canada in 1987.
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Greetings to all my fraternity brothers all over the
world. First of all, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to all the newly
elected UPBSI Board of Directors. As I ran unopposed, their votes were not to
elect me as President, but rather, votes of confidence for me to lead the
organization for the next two years. To all members of the BOD, I accept the
challenge. I will do everything in my power to live up to your expectations and
be worthy of your trust. Secondly, I’d like to thank COMELEC Chair, Brod Fred
Young, for moderating the election process. A job well-done Brod Fred!!
Let me start by going 50 years back. When I joined the fraternity in February of
1970 in UP Los Baños, never in my wildest dreams that there will be a UP Beta
Sigma International. Back then, there was just UP Beta Sigma Fraternity, either
Diliman or Los Baños, although sometimes I’d meet brods from other universities
and colleges in the Philippines. If you told me then that the fraternity will go
international, I would have said, you must be smoking something good. I’m not
sure if that’s being shortsighted or just the idea was so farfetched for me to
even imagine. Now, fast forward, here I am in the US with a number of my
contemporaries from both UP Los Baños and UP Diliman, and a lot more brods from
the other UP systems scattered all over the globe. Even more surprising to me is
being elected President of this international group the year I celebrate 50
golden years in the fraternity!! I’ll take this instead of a gold-plated watch.
I have to admit I had some reservations at first when Brod Tatang asked if he
could nominate me for the position. I knew it’s going to be a daunting job to
take on knowing I have some tough acts to follow considering the projects and
programs all previous Presidents have accomplished. But then, I thought about it
and had an epiphany – a good Beta Sigman does not shy away from challenges. As
long as I lead, guided by the fraternity principles, the BOD and the rest of the
members of the group will be right there with me. Shoulder-to-shoulder we will
work towards the attainment of the goals we set out to accomplish in the next
two years.
Just like our good old college days when we did almost anything to make sure our
beloved fraternity took its proper place on campus -- socially, culturally,
athletically and other extracurricular activities. But that was eons ago or so
it seems. Times have changed, we’ve grown older (hopefully wiser), we are worlds
apart geographically and we’re living in a “new normal.” Change is inevitable
and for our beloved fraternity to survive, we have to adapt. We have to face
challenges head on and find opportunities we can exploit. We have to admit our
weaknesses but capitalize on our strengths. Although we cannot change the past,
we definitely can learn from it so that we can be relevant now and into the
future.
As we look forward to the future, we have to make
sure that we collaborate not only within the UP Beta Sigma International, but
also with the UP Beta Sigma Central, the JC SOMA, BBB, and OBBF. Granted we’re
going to have our differences as individuals, we should be mature and
professional enough to agree to disagree as we fix our sights at our goals.
There will be plenty of opportunities to have a discourse on our differences.
So, let’s set them aside. At the end of the day, we are all Beta Sigmans working
towards a common good, borne of the same traditions and principles.
Now, the hard work begins. WELCOME THE CHANGE WHILE PRESERVING OUR PRINCIPLES.
Jim Gonzalvo, UPLB, ‘70B
President, UP Beta Sigma International (2020 – 2022)
