A few days ago, the Senate of the Republic, with the presence of the president, vice president, officials and businessmen, gave a well-deserved recognition to José Luis Corripio.
When the word “Pepín” is mentioned in this country, we all know who we mean. His contribution, as mentioned by the ing. Eduardo Estrella, president of the Senate, in favor of culture, freedom of expression and respect for human rights, have been of enormous importance for the country.
If engineer Estrella had been Mr. Corripio’s supplier, he would have added his great skills as a negotiator. I have had the pleasure of improving my buying skills through interesting price haggling with him.
Only once did I think I had beaten him, I was on a cruise to Norway and we negotiated a penny discount, after a lot of haggling we came to an agreement of half a penny each. Very happy I told my wife “I won Pepín half a cent”, but my happiness was short-lived when I got the phone bill.
Those who knew his parents Don Manuel and Doña Sara recognize that he inherited the qualities of both. That tremendous memory of Don Manuel and the tenacity of Doña Sara.
From a very young age I knew Pepín, he always tells me that one day I was trying to get out of the pool of my uncles Celso and Teresa and he came to help me and my mother told him: “No, Pepín, so that he learns to fend for himself” . Those are the positive experiences we learn from our elders.
In his speech before the Hall of the National Assembly he said that “there are many favorable circumstances that fate places in one’s hands”, it is very true, but it is even more so, that one must have the capacity to know how to take advantage of them and to You have to remember that every day the marginal propensity to go bankrupt is high and that you charge less than you spend. José Luis Corripio has been able to overcome both situations intelligently.
I have always admired his ability, but more than that his simplicity. She always has a kind word and advice. His collaborators say that he is the first to be aware of his joys and sorrows.
I recognize the balance with which he has managed a communication emporium, a balance that has helped the country to overcome many situations that have put the nation’s democratic stability at risk.
Among his experiences, there is one that I remember is a certain mischief, he told me that when he was organizing the release of the morning paper Hoy, the owner of another important morning paper, trying not to have him as a competitor, which is not easy, told him that this was not a good business and it was not like the commercial businesses to which Pepín was accustomed, that the investment was recovered after five years. He replied: “What happy news you have given me, I thought that the term would be ten years, now I am really in a hurry”.
For those who believe that the path to making a fortune is easy, I copy this paragraph from Mr. Corripio’s speech that all entrepreneurs should have recorded in a corner of their office “preaching by example, more than demanding, helping; rather than correct, teach; without forgetting that, just as work, discipline, perseverance and example constitute the fundamental stones of success, this example constitutes the fundamental stones of success, always received with caution and humility, since it must never be forgotten that the same ladder that goes up, is the same where you may have to go down.”
I loved that paragraph because I say something similar to my collaborators so that success doesn’t go to their heads and I recommend to my friends who dabble in politics that they don’t let the water table go to their heads.
A few days ago I visited him in his office and told him that he symbolized the success of the many immigrants who arrived and made this beautiful country theirs. My grandparents, especially Celso, because Constantino can’t enjoy it, he died when I was a child, he told me about his trip from Asturias to Puerto Rico, and then he decided to live here. A small suitcase that more than clothes were what it contained.
José Luis Corripio has been a man of undoubted success in business, but his greatest success is the beautiful family he has forged together with his wife Ana Maria, men, women and children, who receive an inheritance that is more important than money, they are the principles, the seriousness, the honesty that they have received from Pepín.
