BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Zamorano’s Board of Trustees is composed of individuals from various nationalities and professions, all of whom have distinguished careers and share common altruistic ideas, commitments, and purposes for the benefit of Latin America, its youth, and the development of their countries. They possess a strong sense of philanthropy and are voluntary individuals who donate their time, knowledge, experience, image, and even their own financial resources. They have played a crucial role in driving and supporting the institution’s continuous progress, being responsible for the institution’s recent developments in recent years.
Erik Peterson (President),
Patricia Price Peterson Foundation
San José, Costa Rica
Erik Peterson was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2014. He has over 25 years of
experience in private equity and investment banking in Latin America. Mr. Peterson currently
serves as the chairman of the board of Hacienda Esmeralda, a leading coffee and dairy
production entity, and the Patricia Price Peterson Foundation, a private foundation focused
on supporting youth and educational initiatives in Central America.
Richard Voswinckel,
Treasurer
Retired Director and Chief Financial Officer
Germany / Guatemala
Richard Voswinckel was elected a member of the Board of Trustees in 1995. Born in Hamburg,
Germany, he was a director and chief financial officer at Dresdner Bank in Latin America and
UBS. He has over 40 years of experience in commercial banking and wealth management in Latin
America. He resides in Antigua, Guatemala.
Oscar Luzuriaga, General Director of LAAD
Oscar Luzuriaga was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 2017. Mr. Luzuriaga is a
Zamorano graduate from the Class of 1989. He is the CEO and a board member of the Latin
American Agribusiness Development Corporation (LAAD), with over 26 years of experience in
agribusiness and the banking industry in Latin America.
Alison Stone,
UNIMER S.A. de C.V.
Alison Stone was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 1997. She holds a master’s
and Ph.D. in Latin American studies from Tulane University. She worked at the Centro de
Investigación y Adiestramiento Político Administrativo (CIAPA) in San Jose, Costa Rica, and
in the Department of Education and the Department of Latin American Studies at Tulane
University. She was the general manager of UNIMER S.A. de C.V. in San Salvador, El Salvador,
before retiring in 2006. As a co-owner of UNIMER S.A. de C.V., Stone is a board member of
the company.
Rick Falck,
Arnot Realty
Arnot Realty
Rick Falck was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1990, where he has held the positions of
treasurer and board president. Born in Elmira, New York, Mr. Falck began his interest in
agriculture on his family’s farm in Colorado. He lived in Guatemala from 1972 to 1986, where
he developed a cattle and rubber project, also managing a plantation of coffee, tea, quinoa,
and macadamia nuts. He is the former president of the American Foundation of the University
of the Valley of Guatemala. In 1999, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in education.
Ricardo Koyner,
Owner of Café Kotowa and Boquete Tree Trek Mountain Resort
Ricardo Koyner was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 2009. He is a Zamorano
graduate from the Class of 1987. He holds a master’s in agribusiness from the University of
Florida and is the owner of Café Kotowa, a coffee-producing company focused on processing,
exporting, and retail sales. He also owns the ‘Boquete Tree Trek Mountain Resort’ and other
tourist attractions.
Juan Medrano,
Professor, University of California UC Davis
Juan Medrano was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2009. He is a Zamorano graduate from
the Class of 1969. He specialized in animal sciences and genetics at the University of
California-Davis, where he currently teaches. His research interests include next-generation
sequencing applications and biology-based approaches in systems to study genetic variation
of complex traits, genetics of milk composition and animal growth, development of the new
bovine genome assembly, genomics of coffee: developing a reference genome, its transcriptome
sequence, and genetic diversity among varieties.
Robert Watson,
CEO Confiteca / CEO La Querencia
Robert “Robbie” Watson was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 2015. He holds a
degree in animal husbandry from the UNA in Lima, Peru, and an MBA from ESAN in the same
country. He was the general manager of Yanbal Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, and Guatemala
for 35 years. He is the CEO of ‘La Querencia Dairy Farms’ since 1987 and CEO of Confiteca
(Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia) since 2015.
Gustavo León-Gómez,
Lawyer and Founding Partner at Consortium Legal
León-Gómez was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 2018. He is a founding partner
of Consortium Legal – Honduras, specializing in corporate and consumer advisory services, as
well as advising local and international financial entities on regulations and various
banking operations. Mr. León-Gómez is a professor at the Judicial School “Salomón Jiménez
Castro” of the Judiciary of Honduras and an advisor to the Honduran Association of Banking
Institutions.
Rafael Flor,
Senior Program Officer, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Rafael Flor joined the Board of Trustees in 2021. Flor is a Senior Program Officer on the
Agriculture Development team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has 20 years of
progressively responsible work experience in international development across a variety of
roles. Flor is a Zamorano graduate, Class Orion 1999, and from Columbia University.
Daniel Sniff,
Professor
University of Georgia
Sniff was appointed a member of the Board of Trustees in 2021. He served as associate vice
president for campus planning at the University of Georgia for over thirty years. Sniff
holds appointments as a professor in the School of Environmental Design at the University of
Georgia and the School of Design at Georgia Tech.
David Hartwell
Hartwell is a seasoned executive and strategic entrepreneur who understands and thrives
dealing with the complexities of creating, managing and changing businesses and
organizations. Built and ran a successful composite panel manufacturing business while at
the same time providing leadership guidance to numerous, mostly environmental entities.
After retiring in 2015 from the composites business, he continues involvement in businesses,
primarily on a board level as well as environmental work. He is one of the few conservation
leaders with the diversity of actual experience to help guide strategic decisions based on
fieldwork.
Sarah Christensen
Christensen is a U.S. attorney with over three decades of professional experience. She is a
retired Judge and now living in Ecuador where she is Co-Owner of Wara, an Ecuadorian
clothing company since 2021. Her legal expertise has been honed through various roles,
including President of her own Law Firm, Executive Director of International Operations at
Powell Products, and positions as an Associate a several other firms. Additionally, she
served as Deputy State Public Defender for the State of Colorado.
Lori Leonard
Leonard holds the position of professor and inaugural chair in the Department of Global
Development at Cornell University. Her ongoing research concentrates on examining the social
and environmental implications associated with consumption, disposability, and the global
flow of used and secondhand items. Gender is a pervasive theme across her research
endeavors.
As a scholar, Leonard has undertaken residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio,
Italy, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS) in Washington, DC.
She has been twice honored with a J. William Fulbright Fellowship and has received research
support from various institutions, including the NSF, NIH, WHO, Council of American Overseas
Research Centers (CAORC), amfAR, state agencies, and private foundations.
