Alexandre Beltrão, ICO’s longest serving Executive Director, dies at age 92

Alexandre Fontana Beltrão, Executive Director of the International Coffee Organization from 1 April 1968 to 30 September 1994, passed away on 4 April 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. “Mr Beltrão is considered one of the ICO’s most influential and innovative Executive Directors, having led the Organization through times of great change,” the ICO said in a statement, noting he was the longest serving Executive Director of the ICO. The ICO noted that Beltrão was an avid supporter of coffee consumption promotion initiatives, contributed to launching the Coffee Development Group in the United States during the 1980s, and advised the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in its early years. He held the position of CEO of the Paraná Institute of Technology (Tecpar) between 1995 and 1998, modernising the institute and helping to transform it into an important center for science and technology. Beltrão was born on 28 April 1924 in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. He was educated at the Instituto Santa Maria, the University of São Paulo, and the Escola Nacional de Engenharia in Rio de Janeiro. His first position in 1948 was as assistant engineer in the Department of Soil Mechanics at the Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas, São Paulo. He trained at the Institut National d'Aérophotogramétrie, Ministère de la Reconstruction, Paris, and the Ministry of Works in London in 1950-51. He was the founder and director of SPL Planning Services Ltd.; observer of the Government of the State of Paraná to the United Nations International Coffee Conference’ special adviser to the President of the Brazilian Coffee Institute in 1964; and Chief of the Brazilian Coffee Institute bureau in New York. Beltrão, whose published works include Paraná and the Coffee Economy (1963 essay), and Economy of the States of Paraná, Pará and Ceará, (1958) and was a Commander of the Order of Rio Branco.