Now on his 10th new company, entrepreneur Jose Gonzalez still hasn’t kicked the startup habit.
By Melanie A. Hahn

When Jose Gonzalez, BSM ’76, came home for the summer after his first year at the University of Florida, his father informed him that he’d be transferring to Purdue that fall.Gonzalez, a resident of Colombia, had never even heard of Purdue, let alone West Lafayette, but his father was adamant. “My father had heard that the University of Florida was a party school,” Gonzalez says. “Whether or not that was the case, he had a suspicion, and that was it for me at Florida.”

If grades were any indication, Gonzalez wasn’t partying much - he transferred with a 4.0/4.0 grade point average. “I never got to find out whether it was a party school,” he laments jokingly. “I wasn’t old enough to go out drinking.”

An electrical engineering student at the University of Florida, he transferred into the same major at Purdue, but a stint with the impossible subject of physics soon changed his mind. He began to contemplate other careers. Always fascinated by aviation, he thought about entering Purdue’s flight training program.

“But guess what my father said?” Gonzalez says. “Management, it was.”

Entrepreneur at heart
Always inquisitive and curious, Gonzalez was right at home at Krannert.

“At the time, Krannert was almost a new school,” he remembers. “It was a wonderful experience. Case studies were very eye opening - seeing the real issues in business. That’s what made me love management. I realized I wasn’t bred to be an employee for anybody. My calling was to be my own boss, create enterprise, make my own destiny.”

After he graduated, Gonzalez acquired the habit of starting new companies - 10, to be exact. Each arose from the previous one. Some were successful, some not. Gonzalez took it all in stride.

“Practice makes perfect,” he says. “I love the thrill of starting something from scratch and seeing it take form, come to fruition. If it doesn’t, I go on to something else.”

Having combined his love of aviation with entrepreneurship, he is currently president and CEO of four successful companies: PanAmerican Logistcs LLC, the holding company of Aviation Management International, PanAmerican Transport, and Perishables Group International LLC, with domestic and international aviation and air cargo operations in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Latin America. The companies, headquartered in Atlanta, handle the storage and transportation of perishable commodities.

Gonzalez cautions would-be entrepreneurs to think carefully before beginning a new enterprise.

“You have to have a calling for this,” he says. “A lot of people are averse to risk. This is not their calling. Some people start a company because they are having trouble getting a job, or they want to work for themselves. They think it’s an easy solution. But at the first sign of adversity, they quit.

“One thing makes or breaks you, and that is patience,” he says. “That old saying, ‘If at first you don’t succeed ...’ that is true for the entrepreneur.”

And when you succeed, you can’t get too attached, he warns, adding, “I always say that all my businesses are for sale.”

Some enterprises, on the other hand, are worth keeping. Gonzalez and his wife, Amparo, just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last June. “You’ve always got to be ready to move on to the next company, but not to the next wife,” Gonzalez jokes. Gonzalez credits part of their marital success to the fact that Amparo, the director of the diabetes center at St. Joseph Hospital of Atlanta, is busy with her own career and supports his drive for freedom in his - though, he says, “She does get nervous when I tell people my businesses are always for sale.”

Gonzalez is well recognized for his contributions to his community. He has received the Business Man of the Year Award from the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, was named the 1998 International Business Person of the Year by the Clayton County Chamber of Commerce, and in 1997 received the State of Georgia Small and Minority Business Advocate of the Year award from the Small Business Administration.

Knowing that his habit of starting new companies can be a bit draining on the family, Gonzalez says he will probably eventually cut down to only one company, - maybe when he “retires.” He’s a bit vague about when that may occur.

Road well chosen
Gonzalez is grateful for his father’s high standards. “If he hadn’t made me change schools, I might have stayed in my comfort zone,” he says. “I was very happy to be settled in at Florida. I don’t know where I would be if I had stayed.”

However, Gonzalez has different ideas on guiding his own son and two daughters. “There’s nothing wrong with making a convincing argument,” he says. “I would have listened if my father had given me a choice. I’ve tried to be helpful with my kids, but not take such a hard stance.”

Regardless, he says he’s glad he ended up with Purdue credentials. “When I looked for a job, doors opened for me that didn’t open for others,” he says.

In fact, when Gonzalez went on to earn an executive MBA from Mercer University in Atlanta, he says the experience wasn’t that different from his undergraduate education at Krannert 15 years earlier. “And that was an MBA!” he says. “That tells you a lot about the academic level of Krannert. I’m very grateful.”