Fernando Solana, Mexican diplomat and politician, Died at 82

Fernando Solana Morales was born on February 8, 1931, and died on March 23, 2016.

He was a Mexican diplomat, politician and businessman.

Fernando Solana served as the Mexican Secretary of Public Education, of Commerce and of Foreign Affairs.

He graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where has been a professor in Economics, Philosophy, and Political Sciences.

Fernando Solana has also served as Secretary General of the University.

Fernando Solana started his public service career after he was appointed as Secretary of Commerce by president José López Portillo in 1976.

Within less than a year later, he was appointed Secretary of Education, a position that he retained to the end of the López Portillo administration in 1982.

In that same year, the new president Miguel de la Madrid named him General Director of BANAMEX, the biggest private bank in Mexico that had just been nationalized by the previous government, he remained in this charge until 1988 when Carlos Salinas de Gortari named him as Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

He was senator representing the Federal District and chair the senatorial commission on International Affairs, from 1994 to 2000.

Now he chairs the board of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs a nongovernmental organization, with some 500 independent members that include businessmen, diplomats, professors and people link with the international activities of Mexico.

Fernando Solana also was a member of the board of some of the largest Mexican corporations, the Institute of the Americas in California, the Mexican American Foundation for Science, Euro America Foundation in Madrid, Canning House in London and president of Solana Consultores, a business consultan firm.

Fernando Solana passed away at 82 yrs old.