News: Southscapes Fall 2008

UGA to Uruguay

CAES grad decides to go global

By Brad Haire

From his top-floor office in Montevideo, Uruguay, Andres Villegas can see the city's World Trade Center towers and
gaze across the Rio de la Plata, the world's widest river. From this vantage point he reflects and is happy with the
decisions he has made.

"I once read that some of the most important decisions in our lives are made between the ages of 18 and 32. Most people decide to go to college, set their career direction and settle on marriage and family," Villegas said. "These decisions set the foundation for the rest of our lives."

Villegas, 32, married Leigh in April 2007. They moved to Uruguay the following August after he decided to take a new position there with Weyerhaeuser, one of the world's largest forest products
companies.

Marriage? Check.
Career? Check.
All accomplished inside that time window.

Villegas' decision to go to college was made in 1994 when he enrolled in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He graduated in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in biological sciences and a Certificate in International Agriculture.

"The degree in biology gives you a chance to see how cells and organs work and interact in a system to keep plants and animals alive and reproducing," he said. "You can translate that to the world, either to business or people, how to keep moving parts synchronized. With that training and science background, I've approached problems and business."

While at CAES, Villegas, who speaks English and Spanish, studied abroad for a summer in Guatemala. This experience prepared him to work internationally.

"The opportunity to study abroad helped me grow in ways that would have otherwise been difficult in the United States," he said. "Living in the U.S., we are sometimes isolated from the way that much of the rest of the world works and lives. Understanding that different resources, cultures, politics, opportunities and points of view shape other peoples' perspectives just as they shape our own is an important part of making the most of an international career or work experience. The certificate program helped me learn this firsthand and gain a tremendous amount of confidence in myself."

The decision to go to UGA wasn't hard. The son of Pedro Villegas, a professor with the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, Villegas grew up in Athens, Ga. The elder Villegas developed a vaccine used around the world to fight Newcastle's disease, a virus that has caused major economic losses to the poultry industry. In 1977, Pedro and his wife Angela, a retired medical microbiologist formerly with the UGA Health Center, moved from their native country of Colombia to Georgia.

The younger Villegas says UGA helped shape his life. "My father's work in research and teaching, the faculty at the university and the strong poultry, forestry and ag industries in Georgia all tied together to form the foundation for what I have done later in my career," he said.

Three days after graduating from CAES, Villegas became an international trade specialist with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, promoting Georgia's food and fiber products in China, Japan, Mexico, Cuba and several European countries.

"Georgia's natural resources continue to be an engine for economic growth. The state also has a well-developed transportation and logistics infrastructure, like airports and ports, that have served to open it up to the rest of the world and give it some important advantages from a global trade perspective," he said.

While at the department of agriculture, Villegas coordinated with the CAES Office of Academic Affairs to establish a summer internship program for CAES students to work in Brussels.

"We designed the work plan to be focused on short-term market research projects that would be of benefit to Georgia's ag industry," he said. "We were also very fortunate to be able to fund the internship primarily through industry contributions. I was interested in building a program that would give a student a life- and career-building experience like the one I had with the Certificate in International Agriculture program."

Villegas then accepted a position as manager of international business, government affairs and marketing for Langdale Industries, Inc., a family-owned forestry and wood products company based in Valdosta, Ga. He was comfortable and happy with the job, he said, when Weyerhaeuser called.

"It was not an easy decision to leave and move far away from a very good job, family and friends," he said. "But the opportunity to work overseas for a Fortune 500 American company with aggressive plans for growth doesn't come around every day. This was an opportunity that I am glad I acted on."

Villegas is now Weyerhaeuser's South America Industrial Development Manager. He is responsible for the sales and operations planning process for the company's timberlands, manufacturing, sales and finance operations in Uruguay. He is also developing the company's industrial wood products and renewable energy businesses.

Although Weyerhaeuser's timberland operations in Uruguay have been in place for more than a decade, the company's industrial operations are still young."What is exciting is that once we reach our full investment and operational state, the products we sell will replace some of the tropical and otherwise environmentally sensitive wood products in the marketplace that are increasingly considered to be unsustainable," Villegas
said.

Weyerhaeuser's administration is pleased with Villegas' performance and his management style.

"As a manager you look for talent, potential and the ability to make a difference. Andres reflects these characteristics and is a great example of the next generation professional that is comfortable inside the box but can think outside of it," said Ray Risco, vice president for Weyerhaeuser Latin America.

In his new position, Villegas hopes to build relations between UGA and Uruguay. This summer, he orchestrated two UGA delegation visits to Uruguay. They met with representatives from the University of Montevideo, the country's most prestigious private university, the Fulbright Commission of Uruguay, the Universidad de la Republica, the national agricultural research institute, private companies and the U.S. Embassy.

"The purpose of building and encouraging these relationships between the academic, government and business communities in Uruguay and Georgia is to build a foundation upon which we can have joint degrees, international internships and cooperative research that will serve to support business in the future," he said.

Today, Villegas and his wife enjoy traveling in and getting to know their new country. "But Athens and Georgia will always be my home," he said.

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