Additional information
by Roberto Bobby E. Aboitiz (Author), Matthias Bube G. Mendezona (Author)
Matthias Mendezona is a prize-winning poet and accomplished author of a personal memoir "How Sweet the Mango, No?" but he now co-authors a book with his late friend and business associate Roberto "Bobby" Aboitiz, with the intriguing title, "You Can't Save 80 Million Filipinos, but You Can Build Me a Park." In this pithy tome, Mendezona recounts the experience of working together with the Aboitiz family (an influential Filipino business clan based in the central Philippine province of Cebu) and a Japanese partner to build what would become one of the biggest ship-building sites in the region. The book is valuable from several perspectives-as a personal memoir relating the difficulties of establishing a greenfields industry in a developing country with its peculiar hydra of tradition, politics, bureaucracy, corruption etc. while raising one's family and building one's own career; as a case study which could be taken up in a business school; and the detailed observation of dealing with the many factors and varied role-players involved in the transformation of an underdeveloped town into a competitive global role-player in the shipping industry. With a modern approach of including telling and relevant personal e-mails, detailing ruminations on the factors which keep a country uncompetitive in a global economy, recording poignant moments of struggling towards success while grappling with social and even personal problems, the book could have a broad audience of Filipinos and foreigners alike as well as businessmen, investors and laymen.
Author Biography
Matthias "Bube" Mendezona began his quarter century career in the Aboitiz group of companies as a management trainee in Smith, Bell and Co. Inc and retired as VP for Industrial Estates. Jesuit educated from grade school through to College, Mendezona obtained a University of the Philippines masters degree in Business Management. A current faculty member of the University of Phoenix CA campus, he has authored two other books, "How Sweet the Mango, No?" and a prize-winning poetry collection entitled "Rumination". He lives with his wife Mikey in Sacramento, CA within driving distance from two of his four daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, and the outdoors that they frequent.
