Ricardo Gomez

His children, María, Ricardo, and Alejandro, and his grandchildren, Emilia, Luisa, Camila, Tomás, Mateo, Reed, Isabel, Gabriel, and Nicolás, share the news of his passing. Ricardo lived a full life. He celebrated his 90th birthday with a large party and plenty of dessert, which he always said was the best part of any meal. Facing metastatic cancer and a diseased prostate that was blocking his kidney function, he made the decision to stop treatment and meet death on his own terms, choosing to rejoin the love of his life, Rosario, known to the family as Yayo.

Son of painter Ricardo Gómez Campuzano and his wife Inés Delgado Padilla, he left Colombia for Canada with his family after the violence of April 9, 1948. He finished high school there and went on to graduate from the University of Toronto as a mining engineer, then returned to Colombia to work in the mining sector, starting in Paz del Río, Boyacá. He met Rosario Umaña and married her in 1962. They had three children.

A career in mining consulting grew into something larger: on behalf of the Colombian government, he became chief negotiator for the design, funding, and construction of what was then the largest mining project in Colombia, the Cerro Matoso nickel mine, where he later served as president and CEO. Colleagues and workers alike knew him as honest, clear-thinking, and hard-working, a manager who defended Colombia's interests against foreign mining investors and the interests of workers and local communities against the company itself. Looking back on his career, what he was proudest of was the corporate social responsibility he built into Cerro Matoso, years before “CSR” was a term anyone used.

Family and other industries in Colombia became his focus after he left Cerro Matoso. He and Rosario eventually retired and moved back to Canada in 2000 to escape political violence, then returned to Colombia in 2016, settling in Villa de Leyva, Boyacá, not far from where his mining career had begun decades before. Rosario died a year ago in Villa de Leyva. Ricardo moved back to Canada to live with Alejandro, and from that day on, he wished every day that he would join her again soon. His cancer diagnosis gave him the opening to make that choice, and to end his life with dignity. We send him off with gratitude, celebrating that he is now with Rosario again. His ashes will rest beside hers in Villa de Leyva.