Mario Jorquera

Mario Jorquera, age 100, beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, of Columbia, Maryland, died on February 22, 2023 after a short illness. Mario was born in Concepción, Chile and grew up in Santiago. He received a degree in Civil Engineering from the Universidad de Chile. In 1949, he married Edith Moll, whom he met in Santiago, and who would be his partner in life for the next 73 years. Shortly after the marriage, the new couple moved to Colombia, where they settled in the then small rural town of Villavicencio. Once there, he became something of an entrepreneur, partnering with a Colombian engineer to build a number of engineering projects, including roads, bridges and water towers. He also bought a farm and pioneered the use of irrigation to grow rice, something then unknown in the region. After living in the wilderness of Colombia for a few years, he, his wife and their first child Lucía moved to Colombia's capital, Bogotá, where his other two children, Mario Jr. and Marcella were born. In Bogotá, Mario continued his entrepreneurial streak, starting a factory to manufacture wood parquet flooring, and afterwards a company to create topographic maps from aerial stereo photographs, a field known as photogrammetry. This skill was then unknown in Colombia, so it parlayed into university teaching positions under the sponsorship of the Organization of American States (OAS). While teaching photogrammetry in Colombia for two years, Mario also served as an attaché to the Chilean embassy in Bogotá. After that time, he moved his family to Mérida in Venezuela, where he continued teaching at the university there. In 1967, he was offered a position as a natural resources expert with the OAS in Washington, DC, where that office was charged with implementing President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress in Latin America. This gave Mario a chance to work in many Latin American countries, something which he loved. In 1977, Mario was appointed as the Director of the OAS office in Port of Spain, Trinidad, where he managed that office until his retirement in 1988. In retirement, he and his wife returned to the U.S. to travel and to be closer to his family. Mario loved to travel with his wife, and was a gifted storyteller. His passions also included a fondness for cars, many of which he resurrected from oblivion with his mechanical skills. This instilled a similar passion in his son. Survivors include his wife Edith, his three children, Lucía Hughes, Mario E. Jorquera and Marcella Jorquera, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Mario Jorquera

April 10, 1922 - February 22, 2023