“Both my wife, María Elena Sánchez Salazar, and I did the MSc. in Ecology degree course in 1985-1986 at the then University College of North Wales, Bangor.
We both gained our BSc degrees in Biology from Mexico´s National Polytechnic Institute and were hired as part-time assistant lecturers at their National School of Biological Sciences in Mexico City. We both felt that, working in academia, it was necessary for us to pursue postgraduate studies in order to be able to deliver decent lectures and conduct scientific research.
The possibility of pursuing postgraduate studies at a first world institution leading in ecology was a most attractive opportunity and challenge. Prof. John L. Harper, Prof. Raymond Seed, Prof. Roger Hughes and Prof. Peter Greig-Smith were among the lead researchers that were developing new views and methodological approaches to understand complex ecological phenomena, all of them at Bangor.
Fortunately enough, we both were granted a Technical Cooperation Award from the British Council to do MSc. studies in the UK. The scholarship covered our school fees and living costs and, although it was just enough to cover the day-to-day expenses, it was quite comprehensive as it included a four-week English course at the beginning, in addition to specific stipends for winter clothing, books, printing the thesis, travel to attend required study trips that were part of the course, etc. Because of this, we were able to rent a small cottage out in Gerlan (above Bethesda) rather than staying at the university halls of residence. This though involved a 5-mile daily commute which was made a little bit challenging by the continuous rain and wind of North Wales and the snow in the winter. Nevertheless, we enjoyed having a space for ourselves, where we could focus on our studies. We both did very well in the MSc. course and my wife was even able to publish a couple of scientific papers out of her thesis. We heard that we got the top marks in our class.
While operating in English at the University posed no problems for us, the Welsh-speaking environment, particularly up there in Gerlan posed occasional challenges, but all of those were worked out thanks to the kindness of our Welsh and English lecturers and neighbours. As all of our daily expenses were, in essence, covered by the scholarship and we were very much focused on our studies, we were able to make savings during the year to take a couple of short trips to Europe in the winter break before returning home at the end of the course.
We returned to Mexico with a feeling of great accomplishment and self-confidence. Our enthusiasm, however, was met with difficult working conditions, low salaries in academia, high inflation in the country and scarce resources for research. Shortly afterwards, we both began looking for other opportunities.
By 1989 María Elena had begun a successful managerial career in industry, working for Procter and Gamble, a move that was facilitated by the solid recommendation letters that the MSc. course organiser (Prof. Malcolm Cherrett) and her thesis advisor (Prof. Raymond Seed) wrote for her.
Although I also received a job offer from the industry, I decided to remain at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), where I slowly made good professional progress. I was eventually appointed coordinator of the MSc. Ecology program, became a member of the National System of Researchers and, later on, Deputy Director for Academic Affairs of the IPN's National School of Biological Sciences.
Our son was born in 1994 and our daughter one year later. For family and health reasons, María Elena decided to quit her very promising managerial career in industry to take care of the children. Having only one salary proved to be difficult sometimes and this, together with her never-ending curiosity, dynamism, and entrepreneurship, led her to continue working as a freelance, part-time consultant for her former office at P&G and, afterwards, for other companies in the same industry sector. Over the course of the years, her consultancy work became focused on translating (English-Spanish) technical documents for the pharmaceutical industry and on translating (Spanish-English) manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals authored by researchers in Mexican universities and research centres. Needless to say, this development was made possible by her solid scientific background and full command of English, both of which had been nurtured by our studies and stay in Bangor.
By 2000 I began looking for other job opportunities, as work conditions at the IPN continued being very limited. In 2002, the opportunity presented itself for me to serve as Director General for Environmental Information and Statistics at the Mexico's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. I served in this position from 2002 to 2006. As environmental information has long been a very important topic in many countries, my work at the Ministry of the Environment also involved a busy international agenda, attending meetings and conferences in various parts of the world, often representing the Mexican government at international conferences such as the OECD and UNEP. I can say that all this was made possible by both, my solid scientific background in ecology, my full command of English, and my self-confidence, and all of which had been nurtured by our studies and stay in Bangor.
Perhaps due to my successful work at Mexico's Ministry of the Environment, in 2006 the opportunity presented itself for me to serve as the Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Division of Early Warning and Assessment of the United Nations Environment Programme. This was a prestigious position, with a regional scope, but also very challenging due to the small staff, frequent travels, and limited budget that we had to support the 33 LAC countries. Unfortunately, shortly after I joined UNEP, the decision was made to relocate the LAC regional office from Mexico City to Panama City, with immediate effect. Due to family reasons, I was not able to relocate and made the difficult decision to quit my job at UNEP after only 11 months there.
From 2009 to 2017 I served as the Natural Resources Advisor at the Mexico mission of the United States Agency for International Development in Mexico City. While this was mostly a programme management position, it gave me the great opportunity to co-manage the five-year USAID's Climate Change programme in Mexico. This most rewarding programme supported efforts being made by the federal and state-level governments to mitigate climate change in the country, as well as supporting field activities aimed at reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in Southern Mexico. Unfortunately, the programme was terminated in early 2017 when the first Trump administration took office.
Since mid 2022 I have been working at the Verra company as the Manager for REDD technical innovation. Verra, with its Verified Carbon Standard, is the world-leading standard in the voluntary carbon market. In those between-jobs intervening years, I carried out freelance consultancy work for various international organizations including UN agencies (e.g., UNEP, UNDP, UN Statistics Division), the InterAmerican Development Bank, and others. Fortunately enough, María Elena's translation business is small but now firmly established and has allowed us to successfully navigate my between-jobs periods and the income variability that independent consultancy work entails.
This year (2025) we are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and it is also 40 years ago that we travelled to Bangor to start the MSc. Ecology course at UCNW. As part of our anniversary celebrations, we are planning to go back to Bangor in the autumn. We both keep UCNW and our stay in Bangor very high in our life memories as they were key for our careers, professional development, and undoubtedly also for our personal and family lives. We cannot thank the British Council enough for their generous support that gave us such a life-changing opportunity so early in our careers and lives.”