INTERVIEW WITH MR. MARIANO PRESAS
First of all, hello to all the people who are reading this post. We are a group of students that are doing interviews to people living abroad about different kinds of topics. The most important things of this activity are the values that the interviewees transmit during the talks. This week we talked to Mariano Presas, President of PFERD Inc. In this summary we are going to mention the most important things about his life, job, his experiences living in USA, his career and other things. We hope you like this report.
Mariano Presas was born in Argentina and studied here too. In 2010, he had the opportunity to move to Arizona, a city of the United States of America. A few years later, he moved with his family to Cancún where they lived for 5 years. Last year, he went to Brazil and Germany for different interviews to apply for a job in the company that he is now working for. He told us that he has not lived in Argentina since 2010 and that he can speak English and Spanish, but he cannot speak German.
Another thing that he mentioned was the reason for moving to the USA, not only for work, but for different other things such as the education system and its lifestyle. Besides, Mariano and her wife consider that their kids have a better future in the USA. Nowadays, he lives in Milwaukee, which is in the State of Wisconsin.
When we talked about the countries he had been in, he mentioned something very interesting, the opportunities for our lives. Mariano told us that when the family was in Mexico, he and his wife wanted to go back to the USA, but not just for them,but for their children and the opportunities offered by the education system there. For example, he told us that it is possible for a person in the USA that is a lawyer to study Psychology, and then take a gap year, and eventually ends up being a teacher; but here in Argentina it's not like this, and that's fine because that depends on every culture.
But a tip we take is to try to get out of our comfort zone, gain as much experience as possible, ask people about the degree we're interested in, and not only to our relatives but to any acquaintances as well.
We asked him questions about his life in the United States. We know that he has been married for many years and that he has four children, including a couple of twins. The youngest is Tomas, who is American. Mariano likes Mexican meals more than the American ones, since as we know he first lived in Mexico. The eldest daughter is Maggie. She is seventeen and she was born in Argentina. Finally, in the middle they have the 14-year-old twins, Juan and Victoria, whose birthday is in one month.
What about his academic and professional life? We are amazed by the huge number of things he has done, and for sure we’ll take his advice of keeping the mind open for new opportunities and “challenge the measurements of our suit”. To begin with the academic part, he studied Business Administration at the Universidad de Belgrano from 1990 to 1995, and in 1999 he took an MBA at the Universidad Austral, finishing it in 2000.
On the other hand, his working experience started when he was studying, in 1993, as a Data Master Supervisor in Kodak Alaris, where he worked for three years. After that he worked as an Administration Finance and General Manager at Carplast until 2006, when he started working as a General Manager for “Equipos & Herramientas”, a Swiss company in Argentina. Finally, in 2008 he started working for the company that gave him the opportunity in 2010 to live abroad, in Cancún (Mexico). Nine years later he moved to USA, where he’s now, working for PFERD North America as the president.
Regarding the pandemic we asked about the measures that the authorities have taken. At the beginning, there was a total shutdown, and after some time, the important industries re-opened, with some guidelines and protocols. Finally, after three weeks, the government noticed that the measures were going nowhere, and decided to re-open every industry, following the instructions, social-distancing and the protocols carefully.
Finally we asked him what piece of advice he would say to himself being our age again. He answered that we are in a moment when we must take the most important decisions in our lives, but we are not prepared to do that. For that reason, we have to take it seriously, and we have to leave our comfortable zone and ask as many people as we can about what we have chosen. However, if we make the wrong decision, it is not the end of the world, and we can continue a different path. Lastly, he said that he feels a little Argentinian, and that he keeps some customs. He is a River fan and misses the Asado, but he does not like mate. Nevertheless, he agreed with another interviewee, Javier Martinez, that living in many countries makes you feel like a citizen of the world. The last advice, which was told after the interview, was to watch TEDx talks in order to open our minds to new and different themes and perspectives.
This article has been written by PEREZ Catalina, SORAIRE Iganacio, FRECHEL Luna, SERRAIOCCO Micaela, AGUIRRE Lautaro, LUKJANIEC Juan Manuel, ORTEGA Lautaro and SÁNCHEZ Santiago.
