Puerto Rican entrepreneur establishes Uriarte-Bruno Family Fund
The fund supports Georgia Tech scholarships to provide opportunities for Puerto Rican students.
Motivated by the education he received at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and his desire for talented young people to achieve the same, Francisco J. Uriarte has established the Uriarte-Bruno Family Fund at the Puerto Rico Community Foundation (FCPR).
The fund supports the Transforming Lives Scholarship Fund at Georgia Tech, specializing in engineering, which has been the alma mater of other Puerto Ricans, he said.
“With this Fund, I seek to support the Transforming Lives Scholarship Fund to strengthen the possibilities for talented students to achieve an academic degree at Georgia Tech, regardless of their economic situation,” said Uriarte. “I embrace the path that philanthropic institutions such as the Puerto Rico Community Foundation provide for us.”
Uriarte holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, with a minor in finance, from Georgia Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in finance from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. He has more than 30 years of experience in corporations, strategy, marketing, operations, finance, and mergers and acquisitions.
His son Joaquín also graduated from Georgia Tech, earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 2022, and now works as an analyst at Accenture San Francisco. His daughter Irene is in her first year of a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering at Georgia Tech.
“It’s wonderful to see how philanthropy blossoms in the hearts of people who are grateful for the opportunities they have had in life, as the Uriarte-Bruno Family Fund shows us. There are many ways to give back, and this is one of them, and we are honored to be an institution that facilitates that path of love for humanity,” said FCPR President Nelson I. Colón-Tarrats.
Mary Ann Gabino, vice president of the FCPR, added, “The Community Foundation is honored to facilitate Uriarte’s donations. Through this type of fund, we become a bridge that makes possible the wishes of people who have crossed borders to grow and who return and contribute so that others continue to grow.”
Uriarte follows in the footsteps of José Domingo Pérez, another Puerto Rican Georgia Tech graduate who established a fund bearing his name to support a permanent chair in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the College of Engineering.
“Georgia Tech has developed a very close bond with Puerto Rico, thanks to its students and graduates, who have been characterized by excellence in what they do. Likewise, they are people of immense generosity,” said Sara Araujo, director of development for Latin America at Georgia Tech.
“Thanks to the high value they place on education as a tool for the development and progress of society, several graduates and friends of Georgia Tech have decided to support scholarship programs,” Araujo added. “We hope that 2025 will be a year to provide more opportunities to brilliant young people. We will continue working at Georgia Tech to continue strengthening ties with Puerto Rico.”
According to Georgia Tech’s website, the school’s international community dates to 1895, when the first students from Puerto Rico were enrolled.
After hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the school organized an emergency scholarship fund for students from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and reported that 62 students from Puerto Rico were enrolled at the time.
The FCPR currently manages 102 philanthropic funds, 34 of which are scholarship funds.
