Carlos A. Cabrera
University of Kentucky
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Cabrera, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago, is president and chief executive officer of UOP, the world’s largest provider of process technology, catalysts and services to the refining, gas and petrochemical industries.
Cabrera is a native of Ecuador, and was a high school student there when oil was struck. One of his teachers, a physics professor who was also a chemical engineer, provided an insight to the future. “Chemical engineering was exposed to me as a profession that would have a big say in the industrialization of oil in Ecuador,” Cabrera recalled.
He accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Kentucky, which was recruiting students through an alliance between the cities of Louisville and Quito, his hometown. At UK, he was active in student organizations, and developed a combination of technical, social and leadership skills. Following graduation, and after joining UOP, he made good on his intent to be involved in the oil industry in his native country. He was one of the chief engineers who started the first major Ecuadorian refinery – with all UOP technology.
By 1979, he was district representative with UOP London. He served as area manager for continuing service to customers in Latin America and the Caribbean, manager of the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) area and director of all Operating Technical Service. Later, he supported the establishment and growth of UOP India through an engineering office in New Delhi. His growing business responsibilities led him to pursue an MBA, which he earned in 1989.
In addition, Cabrera led the way for the successful demonstration and installation of several FCC innovations which are now widely used in the refining industry. He developed what was then the world’s largest FCC unit at Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation.
Cabrera led the merger of UOP’s refining and petrochemicals businesses in 2001, and initiated the UOP-BP Alliance, the first broad collaboration agreement between UOP and a major oil company in the areas of technical service and development. Under his guidance, UOP began work on small-scale production of hydrogen in 1997, and set up a subsidiary to sharpen the focus on an emerging field.
In December 2005, he was appointed president and CEO of UOP, a company with approximately 2,800 employees and $1.5 billion in revenue. AIChE recognized his success with its 2007 Fuels and Petrochemicals Leadership Award.
Now, a member of the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Hall of Distinction, he advises young people to look closely at some of the world’s critical problems — energy, climate, and basic needs in the developing world such as potable water and sanitary conditions.
“All of these big challenges involve some very skilled chemical engineering people,” he said. “I think the opportunities are just enormous.”
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Profile
Don’t be afraid to take a risk.
Deliver on what you promise.
Carlos Cabrera learned those lessons from his parents. Those principles, along with the value they placed on a quality education, have helped him rise to the top of one of the world’s leading companies in its field.
Cabrera, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago, is president and chief executive officer of UOP. Headquartered in Des Plaines, Illinois, UOP is the world’s largest provider of process technology, catalysts and services to the refining, gas and petrochemical industries.
Cabrera is a native of Ecuador. He was a high school student there when oil was struck. The event proved to be one that would change the future of his country, as well as his own.
“I had a physics professor who was a chemical engineer, and I was excelling in math and chemistry,” he recalled. “Chemical engineering was exposed to me as a profession that would have a big say in the industrialization of oil in Ecuador.”
Cabrera also had a strong interest in coming to the United States. As he considered colleges, the University of Kentucky was recruiting students by working with an alliance between the cities of Louisville, Kentucky and Quito, Ecuador where Cabrera grew up. He accepted UK ’s scholarship offer.
As a student, he developed strong ties with several faculty members, and strengthened his learning experience by working as a research assistant in chemical engineering and mechanical engineering’s heat transfer laboratory.
Cabrera was very active in several student organizations, including engineering honorary Tau Beta Pi, and the Latin American Students Association. His involvement in such organizations helped Cabrera further develop a strong combination of technical, social and leadership skills. Due to that fundamental experience, he grew into career with an expectation of moving into leadership roles.
“I thought the leadership would come,” he said. “What did change a lot is that I thought I was going to pursue a career strictly along engineering lines. But circumstances never allowed me to do that.” Instead, his growing business responsibilities eventually inspired him to pursue a master of business administration degree from the University of Chicago, which he earned in 1989.
Following graduation from UK in 1973, and after joining UOP, he made good on his intent to be involved in the development of the oil industry in his native country. “I got an opportunity to go back, and I was one of the chief engineers that started the first major Ecuadorian refinery, with all UOP technology,” he said.
Success on an international scale has been a hallmark of Cabrera's career. The key to learning about and understanding different cultures lies in language, he believes.
“If you learn how to speak different languages, you immediately learn that words which have the same translation in a dictionary can have different connotations. Even though you may communicate with words, the intent and the way that people behave in different cultures carry very different meanings. It becomes a challenge, like all other challenges that raise intellectual curiosity, to learn how to interpret and how to be comfortable in sharing your goals and beliefs without intruding on or being disrespectful of beliefs that other people may have.”
By 1979, Cabrera was district representative with UOP London. He served as area manager for continuing service to customers in Latin America and the Caribbean, manager of the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) area and director of all Operating Technical Service. Later, he supported the establishment and growth of UOP India through an engineering office in New Delhi, allowing round-the-clock production, reducing costs and maintaining effective control of intellectual property and quality.
Working in India also provided additional perspective.
“I was staggered by the phenomenal intellectual capacity of many of their scientists,” he recalled. “It always reminded me that there is a lot in science that I don’t know.”
Cabrera also led the way for the successful demonstration and installation of several FCC innovations which are now widely used in the refining industry. He developed what was then the world’s largest FCC unit at Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation.
Other successes followed. He led the merger of UOP’s refining and petrochemicals businesses in 2001, and introduced strategies to take the company forward in the new century. He initiated the UOP-BP Alliance, the first broad collaboration agreement between UOP and a major oil company in the areas of technical service and development. As director for business development, he initiated and oversaw the acquisition of Unocal’s research and technology licensing, resulting in new technologies that are still strengthening UOP’s technology portfolio. Under his guidance, UOP began work on small-scale production of hydrogen in 1997, and set up a subsidiary to sharpen the focus on an emerging field.
In December 2005, he was appointed president and CEO of UOP, a company with approximately 2,800 employees and $1.5 billion in revenue. Even though his career path has led to business leadership rather than the research laboratory, his technical background has served him well. It continues to provide a strong connection to the innovation his company needs to compete in today’s global marketplace.
“I really and truly think that the ability to create new value still has to come out of innovation,” said Cabrera, who was elected to the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2006. “So, I want to make sure that people who are innovating and engineering and inventing have the right environment.”
Thus, in order to help create those environments for innovation and success, Cabrera builds leadership teams based on solid principles.
“The first trait that I look for is honesty. You need people that are very comfortable in expressing their opinions. You also want to have people around you that are comfortable in disagreeing with you. At the end of the day that takes honesty — and courage.”
Cabrera believes capacity and intelligence are obviously important, “but I think a good sense of ethics and a good sense of honesty are the first judgments that I try to make. The second judgment is to see that the right kind of analytical skills are there, so that I gain confidence in their ability to handle vast amounts of information, and to reduce a lot of information to a succinct set of recommendations.”
Though he was in positions of increasing responsibility throughout his career at UOP, being the chief executive holds its own set of challenges.
“Probably, the most important difference is that it becomes a little bit of a lonelier job, in the sense that because you are at the pinnacle, there’s a lot of reservation on what people are willing to share with you. So, you get less information than you sometimes think you need. You also have to be a little more concerned about any interactions that you have with people – what impact they could have or not have — because your voice carries a far stronger level of authority. Becoming comfortable with that is challenging,” he said.
But Cabrera has always had confidence in his own ability, due in part to his strong familial background. His mother was a teacher, his father a career military officer who commanded the Ecuadorian army and then served in a diplomatic post at the Ecuadorian embassy in Washington .
“You observe their success,” he noted. “In our family, we were very early instilled to take risk and deliver on what you promised.”
In recognition of Cabrera's success as a leader, AIChE awarded him with the 2007 Fuels and Petrochemicals Leadership Award.
Cabrera believes his engineering studies built confidence as well as knowledge.
“You study engineering, you begin to gain more and more confidence that you can tackle very complex subjects and simplify them by the basis of knowledge that you have,” Cabrera said. “Then decisions become, technically, a lot easier. The trick is to translate those skills to where you don’t have the information. Sometimes you’re very uncertain about what you have to do, and then it’s a combination of knowledge and your capability to take risk.”
It’s also vital to be open to information from others in an uninhibited fashion, Cabrera says.
“Sometimes you become overconfident, so developing the skill to assimilate the recommendations and counsel of others before you decide is a big part of success.”
He encourages students to take on the challenge and opportunities associated with engineering studies, and sees a bright future for the field of chemical engineering.
“You learn engineering economics, you learn computer skills, you learn advanced mathematics, you learn physics, and you learn chemistry,” he said. “Even if you don’t stay in chemical engineering, you develop problem-solving traits and analytical traits, which are invaluable.”
He advises young people to look closely at the world’s critical problems and at the fields of expertise required to solve them.
“We have a huge challenge with energy,” he said. “We have a huge challenge with climate, in the sense of effects that fossil fuel emissions may or may not have on climate change. We have a huge challenge in the developing world to provide people with potable water and sanitary conditions. We have a huge challenge in producing drugs and medicine at reasonable prices. All of these big challenges involve some very skilled chemical engineering people. I think the opportunities are just enormous.”
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