Embraer marks the 90th birthday of celebrated founder, aviator, engineer, Ozires Silva

Embraer is celebrating the 90th birthday of Ozires Silva, one of Brazil’s most important engineers and leaders in the aeronautic industry, with a short animated film entitled ‘O Voo do Impossível” - freely translated as “The Flight of the Impossible”.

"Ozires Silva is part of a generation of Brazilian entrepreneurs who transformed the national industry, leading Brazil to be respected and admired worldwide," said Francisco Gomes Neto, President and CEO of Embraer. “His entrepreneurial vision and, above all, his contagious passion for innovation, paved the way for Embraer to expand in ways that few imagined and, being today among the largest aircraft manufacturers worldwide.”

Born on January 8, 1931, in Bauru, State of São Paulo, Ozires Silva dreamed, as a child, of making airplanes in Brazil and found in his career as an aviation officer the way to make that goal a reality. In the 1960s, after training in aeronautical engineering at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), in São José dos Campos, State of São Paulo, he enthusiastically exercised leadership over the group of visionaries who developed the Bandeirante aircraft and later created Embraer in 1969. Ozires Silva was the company's first superintendent director.

Embraer President and CEO Francisco Gomes Neto (left) with Ozires Silva.

“It is with the same spirit of overcoming, energy and entrepreneurship that we continue to work to make our company reach even higher flights in the future, continuing to be the technological reference we know today,” adds Gomes Neto.

Ozires Silva was born on January 8, 1931, in Bauru, State of São Paulo, Brazil. In 1948 he joined Aeronautic School, linked to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), in Rio de Janeiro, where he received his military license four years later. He moved to São José dos Campos, State of São Paulo, to join the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA) in 1959, graduating in Aeronautical Engineering in 1962. After graduation, he started to lead the Department of Aircraft at the Institute of Research and Development (IPD), linked to the then Technical Center of Aeronautics (CTA).

In 1965 he started the IPD-6504 project, which would later become the Bandeirante aircraft. Mr. Silva promoted, alongside a group of visionaries, the creation of Embraer in 1969, becoming the company's superintendent director until 1986, when he accepted the offer to take the command of the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. After two years as Minister of Infrastructure and Communications for Brazilian President Fernando Collor, Ozires Silva returned to Embraer in 1992 and chaired the company until its privatization, in December 1994.

Mr. Silva assumed the presidency of Varig airline in 2000, remaining in the position for two years. In 2003, he created Pele Nova Biotecnologia, whose mission was focused on the development of therapeutic and dermo cosmetic innovations based on the biodiversity of Brazil. In the last few decades, Mr. Silva has become an active voice in favor of education, writing several books and articles on the subject. He currently is the chairman of the Strategic Council of Ânima Educação, Chancellor of the University São Judas and Patron of the courses of Engineering and Aviation of the Ânima Ecosystem.

BlueSky Business Aviation News | 14th January 2021 | Issue #588

Share this article