ICE Founder Dengo Dies

Intellectual and visionary, former Vice President and founder of the country's electrical system, Jorge Manuel Dengo died of respiratory complications at his home Tuesday morning. President Laura Chinchilla has decreed three days of national mourning.

A member of a politically prominent family, Dengo was laid to rest Wednesday in a tomb beside his wife, Maria del Carmen Benavides in Heredia. Formeer Education Minister Maria Eugenia Dengo, his sister, said, "He distinguished himself in every public duty he performed. He was excellent through his spirit of service and honor."

A grandson, also named Jorge Dengo, said Tuesday the family awaited the arrival of two of his siblings, Manuel Bernardo and Ana Teresa. They had to fly in from their diplomatic posts in Switzerland and Austria, respectively.

Although he was definitely an intellectual, he believed firmly in action. As early as the founding of the Second Republic in 1949, he, Jose "Don Pepe" Figueres and the ruling junta combined to establish the National Electrical Institute (ICE) so Costa Rica could generate its own electricity.

He then served 11 years as its general manager, starting a rural electrification program that continued into the 1970s. Nor did he only serve publicly -- he was a longtime director in the Fertica fertilizer company, one of the largest home-grown companies, at one time.

He also founded the Office of Civil Defense, the forerunner of the very effective National Emergency Committee of today. In the same spirit of service, he went on to help succor victims of natural disasters abroad, notably the 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua, another in Guatemala in 1976 and a hurricane in El Salvador in 1985.

In 2007 he was named Benemerito de la Patria, received Honoris Causa Doctorate from the University of Costa Rica and was honorary president of the volunteer firemen associate, a group of which he was an active member for many years.

But his most concentrated years of public service were in the first term of President Oscar Arias (1986-90) where Dengo served as vice president, National Planning Director and Minister of Foreign Trade.