Alfredo Salazar

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Alfredo Salazar is an economist and politician affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party (PDP). He is currently running for the office of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States Congress in the upcoming 2008 elections. Until recently, he was the Acting President of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB) and economic czar of the administration of Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, he also served as GDB president during Governor Rafael Hernández Colón's administration. Since reassuming the helm of the bank, he has also become the administration's chief negotiator with the Legislature, controlled by the New Progressive Party. He resigned as Chairman of the Board at GDB effective October 31, 2007.

1 Biography
2 Education
3 Recognition
4 Sources

[edit] Biography

Mr. Salazar has devoted most of his professional life to commercial banking. He began working with Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and then moved on to Chase Manhattan Bank (today JP Morgan Chase), where he occupied several positions including Head of Operations in Puerto Rico, Argentina and Brazil.^{[citation needed]} In 1989 he was appointed President of Banco de Ponce, just before it merged into Banco Popular.^{[citation needed]} From 1993 to 1998, Mr. Salazar was based in New York as Head of Operations for PaineWebber (today UBS Financial Services) in Latin America.^{[citation needed]} He then returned to Puerto Rico as President of Palmas del Mar Properties, Inc., the development company of the posh residential and tourist complex in Humacao.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Education

Mr. Salazar has a BS in economics from Villanova University. He also did post-graduate coursework in finance at New York University and the Harvard Business School.

[edit] Recognition

Among his recent accomplishments, through the creation of a new GDB subsidiary, he was able to place bonds to refinance about half of Puerto Rico's accumulated extraconstitutional debt.^[who?] On July 23, Gov. Acevedo Vilá made it official when he announced that Salazar had officially agreed to be his running-mate in the 2008 elections. He will be facing the winners of the New Progressive Party (NPP) primary, former Attorney General Pedro R. Pierluisi Urrutia and gubernatorial aspirant Luis G. Fortuño Burset who is Resident Commissioner.