Miguel Gutierrez

Miguel was born on October 20, 1940 to Miguel and Margot Gutierrez in Pasto, Colombia. He was the eldest of seven children. He grew up in Pasto, and also on the family farm, Rosa Florida. As a child Miguel aspired to be a singer. In his teens he became fascinated with James Dean and hatched a plan with a close friend to move to Hollywood. However, on the morning of their planned escape his mother discovered their plan and thwarted it.

He was sent to finish high school in Cali and lived with his Uncle Alejo and his family. He become particularly close to his cousin, Pacho. At the age of 19, Miguel emigrated to the US and landed in Baltimore where he knew no one. He made his way to Brooklyn, New York where he had the name of someone who had emigrated from Pasto. He arrived at their doorstep with a letter from home and a food parcel and he was welcomed to spend the night. In his first few years in the US, Miguel worked as a shoe maker in a factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a truck unloader at Macy’s, a Super’s assistant in Queens. Eventually, he entered the electronics field as a clerk, then manager at Electronics Transistors. His dream was always to save up to go to engineering school, and he prepared himself by attending night school for the first few years in this country. Miguel received an associates certificate from the RCA Institute in 1967.

Every week, his coworker and friend, Enrique Andrade would invite him to dinner at his apartment where Enrique lived with his wife, Luz. At one of those dinners, Miguel met one of Luz’s sisters, Elena Diaz, then 26, who was visiting from Colombia. Elena was immediately attracted to him, particularly to his intellect - “He could talk about any subject from politics to art, and you quickly realized he knew what he was talking about.” After Elena returned to Colombia he courted her through letters. Soon enough, Elena moved to New York to be with him. They were married on February 13, 1965, at St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Since Miguel dreamed of going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they spent their brief, weekend honeymoon in Boston, taking photos on MIT’s campus.

Newlyweds Miguel and Elena settled in Flushing, Queens, where they were parishioners at Queen of Peace. As Elena recalls it, “We were poor but happy.” They spent many a weekend piling into a car with friends and family and going to the beach. For the first few years of their marriage Elena worked as a draftsman for city planning while Miguel pursued a career in Electronics Sales. They had their first child, Margarita, in 1966, and their second child, Miguel, in 1971. In 1976 the family briefly returned to South America, when Miguel got a job in Technology Sales for a US company based in Caracas, Venezuela. Eventually, the family returned to the United States and settled in New Jersey, where they would live for the next twenty years.

In the 80’s, Miguel established his own company, Elma Incorporated. The story has it that it was named either after the first letters of his wife and daughter’s names, or the first few letters of the words “electronic machines.” He specialized in selling and installing computer and printing systems to South American print newspapers. A lifelong news hound, this work allowed Miguel to combine his interests in the news media and technology. His lifelong love of the free press was transmitted to his daughter who he would take out as an infant in the freezing winter to buy the Sunday New York Times at midnight on Saturday. For many years, Miguel’s business prospered and the family traveled to Europe and Colombia on vacations. He proudly sent both of his children to Ivy League colleges. In 1989, he met the goal he had set when he came to the US and was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 2011 he was honored by The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers as a Life Member. In 1996, Miguel and Elena moved to Boca Raton, Florida where they have lived for the last 23 years. In theory, he loved the sea and dreamed of sailing boats and building them, but his adventures were eventually more landbound. From 2002 to 2006, Miguel embarked and completed the Camino de Santiago de Compostela three times. He walked the journey in 2006 with his beloved wife, Elena, staying in hostels with fellow pilgrims and sharing his joy of the journey.

In 2008, while in Colombia for the funeral of his beloved younger brother, Armando, Miguel experienced the first of a series of small strokes. Eventually it was discovered that he had developed multiple blood clots in his brain. This led to an extended hospital stay in 2010, which was followed by a long and arduous decline in mental and physical health. His wife, Elena, was his primary caregiver during this difficult chapter in their lives.

Miguel was a news junkie, an avid reader, a polyglot, a classical music lover, a frustrated baritone and a deeply devoted husband and father. He loved his Basset Hound, Picasso, with whom shared a deep suspicion of everything as well as his daily buttered toast. He was a very skilled, untrained artist and musician. He went through a period where he created a series of drawings in the style of Braque or Léger and he could sit at the piano and devise a tune out of thin air. He was often lost in philosophical thought but could quickly enliven with the telling of a vulgar joke. He was fervently anti-war and a strong advocate of social justice, and he was never afraid to say what he thought. He loved his adopted country, but was at the same time deeply skeptical of all political institutions and power. He loved a good fair argument and he taught his children to question everything and everyone and to stand up for themselves and others. He volunteered to help assess damage after Hurricane Katrina, and marched on Washington in the 90s against the Gulf War. His son recalls how, in the 80s, a simple question like, “Dad, how do you turn the CD player on?” could devolve into an hours long intricate explanation of digital technology, its history, and its future. In his extended family he and Elena were known as the people you could call when you needed help. He was a moral compass, known for his forthright and well-researched opinions on history and politics. He loved his granddaughter, Sofia, with all his heart.

He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Elena, and his two children, Miguel, a choreographer based in New York, and Margarita, an attorney in San Francisco, her partner Tam Blood, granddaughter Sofia Gutierrez-Blood, his sisters and brothers, Nena, Isabel, Jose Maria, Hernando and Alvaro and their families, and his wife’s extended family.