He began his engineering career with the construction firm Cuellar Serrano Gomez
and with Antonio Páez Restrepo, collaborating closely with the latter on
advanced engineering projects such as the relocation of the 7 floors, 7,500-ton
Cudecom Building, moved a distance of more than 150 meters in just 8 hours.
While at the firm he also collaborated on the restoration of the San Lazaro
batteries at the San Felipe de Barajas Fortress in Cartagena, Colombia, (built by the
spaniards in the 17th century) a fascinating task carried out with support from
Spanish and Colombian military engineers in keeping with the fortress's
original plans on file in historical archives in Seville, Spain.
Later,
as a Fulbright Scholar, he was awarded a Masters in Civil Engineering from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, graduating first in his
class with an invitation to join the Chi Epsilon fraternity, reserved for the
best students in the United States. He attended both, the Management (EMBA) and
Company Presidents Programs at the Universidad de Los Andes and the Real Estate
Law Program at the Universidad Javeriana, both in Bogota.
In 1976, he founded Espinosa Fenwarth y Cia. (now Espinosa and
Restrepo), which would become a one of the country's leading geotechnical
consulting firms, and later sold the firm in 2002.
The
firm's outstanding work in the field included the introduction of geotextiles
in infrastructure, as well as the concept of reinforced earth structures, as
the technical representative for Amoco Fabrics in Colombia, Guatemala,
Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. He also worked with
Arinco, consulting in use of geotextiles on the Medellin airport project,
following impressive testing in the Darien Gap.
In 1985,
he became interested in finance and construction, joining the Board of
Directors at the Ahorramas Mortgage Bank, where he served as Chairman of the
Board for more than eight years. He found this work both extremely interesting
and challenging, given the continuous changes in the rules governing banking
operations, in spite of which he was able to co- lead Ahorramas to successful
consolidation and its eventual acquisition by the Grupo Aval.
He
simultaneously participated as a member of the Board of Directors for the El
Tiempo editorial group for close to 20 years, working on a range of topics that
spanned both press (El Tiempo, Colombia's leading newspaper) and television and
books with its subsidiaries, City TV, Círculo de Lectores, and others).
In 1994,
he became a principal on the Board of Directors of Ecopetrol, the state-owned
Colombian oil company, where he remained for five years, and was also a member
of the Boards of Colgas, Invercolsa (Gas) and the Instituto Colombiano de
Petróleos.
He
has promoted numerous constructions and real estate, residential, office and
commercial development projects in Bogotá, Bucaramanga and Cali, including the
World Business Port complex in Bogotá, awarded the FIABCI Prize in 1998 for
Best Colombian Office Project; the Atlantis Plaza Bogotá, the first mall with
rental spaces in Colombia; and recently, the Club Platino Senior Living
complex, Bogotá's first high-income senior living center.
As part of the Atlantis Mall development, he brought the Hard Rock Café
franchise to Colombia, becoming one of the founding partners for the franchise
in the country and its first CEO. He was also part of the firm that
brought Cinemark to Colombia, one of the world's largest movie theater chains,
initially operating in the city of Bogota, then extending throughout the
country. As a delegate for both Cinemark Colombia and the El Tiempo editorial
group, he joined the consulting team for early development of the El Tesoro
mall in Medellin.
Today, as founder and CEO of Meridian Properties Colombia, and along
with Taborda Velez, he spearheads development of Interpark, a 700,000-square
meter (7.000.000 sqft) industrial park, and the Bogotá Premium Outlets Mall,
covering some 150,000 square meters, along with a 215-room hotel, and a complex with
30,000 square meters of salable office space, both located west of Bogotá.
In
the financial field, Espinosa co-founded the Fondo Inmobiliario Ultrabursatiles
real estate fund and the Prologis Bogotá fund, and is also the company's
Executive President- CEO.
Over the
past three years, he has worked as a member of Fulbright Colombia's development
committee, a commission attached to the United States State Department, whose
mission is to provide scholarships in the US to Colombian students and to
maintain exchange programs with American teachers in Colombia.
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