Edward Bours

José Eduardo Robinson Bours Castelo. (Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, December 17, 1956) is a Mexican politician, member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He graduated from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Monterrey campus, Nuevo León, where he studied Industrial and Systems Engineering. He is Doctor Honoris Causa from La Salle Northwest University. He was a senator from 2000-2002, and Governor of the State of Sonora from 2003-2009.

Family

Son of Javier Robinson Bours Almada and Alma Castelo Valenzuela, his father is a well-known Mexican businessman who was mayor of Cajeme from 1967 to 1970 and federal deputy for Sonora representing district 4 from 1970 to 1973 in the XLVII Legislature of the Congress of the Union of Mexico. Married to Lourdes Laborín Gómez; nephew of Enrique Robinson Bours Almada, businessman and member of the Mexican Council of Businessmen; brother of Francisco Javier Robinson Bours Castelo, president of the Bachoco company; brother of Ricardo Robinson Bours Castelo, mayor of Cajeme from 2000 to 2003; and grandson of Alfonso Robinson Bours Monteverde.

Professional activity

In the development of his professional activity, he has held different executive positions within the business sector, from 1980 to 1992 he was director of the company Bachoco. Due to his experience in the agricultural field through the Bachoco family business, Eduardo Bours came to preside over the National Agricultural Council and was appointed Representative Negotiator of the Private Sector in Agribusiness Matters in the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States of America. and Canada (COECE). Later from 1994 to 1996 he was Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the company Fresh del Monte Produce N.V. and general coordinator of the Coordinating Unit for the Business Banking Agreement (UCABE).

In addition, he has participated as a director and member of the Board of Directors of various institutions such as the National Chamber of Commerce, the National Chamber of Cable Television (CANITEC), the Mixed Commission for the Promotion of Exports (COMPEX), the Fund for the Capitalization and Investment of the Rural Sector (FOCIR), National Union of Poultry Farmers, National Union of Pig Production, Pronatura, Herdez, Grupo Azucarero Mexicano, Mexican Restaurant Corporation, Macro Economic Advisory, Serfín Bank, National Bank of Foreign Trade (Bancomext), Nacional Financiera (NAFIN) and the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV).

At the end of the 1990s (1997-1999) he was appointed President of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), a leading body of the Mexican business sector, where he promoted national dialogue and the search for consensus to accelerate the democratic transition. Likewise, he was president of the Technical Committee of the Network of Regional Technical Centers for Business Competitiveness (Red Cetro-Crece), where he promoted support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the establishment of regional service centers in each one of the entities of the country. In just two years, nearly 4,500 companies were served throughout the country.

Politics

In March 2000, he was nominated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party as a candidate for the Senate of the Republic in the federal elections of July 2, where he was elected Senator of the First Minority for the LVIII and LIX Legislatures (2000-2006).

As senator of the Republic for the State of Sonora for the period 2000-06, he presided over the Commission for Economic Development, was secretary of the Commission on Foreign Relations for Europe and Africa and was part of the commissions for Trade and Industrial Development and of Communications and Transportation. As a senator, he promoted various actions aimed at promoting, especially, industrial policy, the promotion of cooperative companies, support for the countryside, and citizen participation in legislative work in commissions. In addition to carrying out the first citizen consultation for a senator of the republic, in the Opina Ahora Sonora consultation, citizen opinion was sought in relation to the fiscal reforms of the 2001-2002 period. He requested leave as a senator in 2003 to participate in the elections for governor of his state, an election that he won, becoming the 70th governor of the state of Sonora.

He has been a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party since 1973. He served as Coordinator of Liaison with the Private Sector and Financing in the electoral political campaign of Francisco Labastida Ochoa in 2000, for the Presidency of the Republic. He is currently a member of the National Political Council, the State Political Council in Sonora and a member of the Municipal Political Council of Cajeme, Sonora.

ABC Nursery

In June 2010, the minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, presented an opinion that was rejected in a vote of eight of the eleven members of the plenary session, in which he pointed out to several officials as responsible for the omission of the death of 49 children and injuries to another 104 children in the fire at the ABC Nursery in Hermosillo, Sonora; Among the officials who had been identified in the aforementioned opinion were the former director of the IMSS, Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas, the also former director of the IMSS, Daniel Karam Toumeh, the former governor of Sonora, Eduardo Bours, among other officials from different levels of government.. The ruling was rejected based on article 97 of the Mexican Constitution, exonerating all the officials involved from the responsibilities indicated by Zaldívar.

In July 2013, the deputy attorney for Regional Control of Criminal Procedures and Amparo of the PGR, Renato Sales Heredia, declared that more than 50 proceedings had been carried out in a new line of investigation, which is why another preliminary investigation was initiated on April 23, 2013 in which Eduardo Bours would be involved. Within these lines of investigation, the evidence provided through the testimonies of alleged witnesses would implicate state officials with the fire; however, according to agents of the Federal Public Ministry of the PGR, the testimonies "were considered insufficient for the purpose of imputing Mr. Bours to any crime, due to the absence of evidence that could support the testimonies, in addition to certain inconsistencies and contradictions in the statements given by the witnesses in different interrogations.

Awards

• He's been named World Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
• It was included in the book 100 Mexican Transition Names.

Links

• The Arizona Bilingual Magazine. Information from Sonora and Arizona
• Biography on the site of the Government of Sonora