Outstanding engineer addresses 2010 graduates

ENGINEER Jeffrey Mijares, a 2001 Outstanding Chemical Engineer Awardee, addressed and inspired the nearly one thousand and five hundred Augustinian 2010 graduates last March.


Mijares finished his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the College of Engineering
and Architecture, then College of Technology, at the University of San Agustin. At
present, he is the manager of the Corporate Environmental Management and Safety Group, and the Ethanol Project Team Leader of the Roxol Bioenergy Corporation, both of Roxas Holdings, Inc.— the biggest sugar manufacturer in the Philippines. Concurrently, he is Pollution Control Officer III of Central Azucarera Don Pedro in Luzon. This outstanding engineer

Commission, from 2006 to the present. Mijares has likewise served as a member of the DENR Pollution Adjudication Board from 2003 to the present. He had been president of the Pollution Control Association of the Philippines, Inc. for two administrative years, from 2001-2003. He has been chair of the Sugar Industry Environment Committee and the Committee on Environment of the Federation of Philippine Industries.

Engineer Mijares has traveled to various places in Asia, North and South America, and Europe in an on-going effort to enhance his skills and knowledge in his chosen field. He has likewise delivered talks, sharing his learning with his colleagues and
countrymen.

The commencement speaker opened his speech by challenging the graduates through the
following question: “After you leave your comfort zone within the walls of the university…, will your new life as a college graduate (be) a constant struggle
for survival or will it be a walk in the park?” He ended it by giving them hope, saying: “Your journey to follow your dreams had just begun. Keep holding unto it. It will take a little while, but for as long as you know where you are going, you will surely get there.”