Thanks to our Hübner Giessen partners, we have contacts all over the globe and get the opportunity to meet plenty of exciting individuals. Here, our sales partner in Brazil, Autron Automação Industria e Comercio Ltda., tells us all about its new employee with an extremely unusual family history: Henrique Ferraz da Silva recently completed his degree in engineering. At the same time, the 22-year-old’s father also received his engineering diploma, after five years of studying together.
This is the story of how a father overcame all the odds to fulfill his life-long dream of studying engineering on his fourth attempt, and how his courage and perseverance influenced his son, told by Henrique Ferraz da Silva himself:
The father’s dream:
“Being an engineer, ‘the first engineer in the family’, had always been my father’s dream and this was unthinkable given the difficulty of the situation, which was not easy. We had countless financial problems since my parents came from humble families and had the responsibility of taking care of a child when they were still very young, which, of course, was not planned. I remember that as a child, he always told me that he would still fulfill this dream. There were three times when he went to college and, for some reason, he had to stop, either because of financial conditions or lack of time since he had a family to support.”
A role model for his son:
“As a son, I followed this battle and inherited this dream. All this battling had to bear good fruit. My mother’s constant support and my father’s persistence were examples that I will carry with me for all my life.”
The big opportunity:
“I got a great scholarship just before my 22nd birthday. It was the chance I needed to fulfill this dream, and not only that, but the same scholarship was also offered to my father. It was the fourth attempt, probably the last. We started college together, the same course in the same classroom. This time he was not alone; I was with him and would not let anything go wrong.”
Achieving the diploma together:
“It was not easy; there were many challenges. Engineering itself in its essence is difficult, but after five years we became engineers together. I am proud to say that I graduated in engineering with my father!”
Get back up and carry on:
“Attitude says more than words. I have seen my father prove this and have followed what he used to tell me when I was a child: ‘Regardless of the difficulty, don’t give up. Face it, move forward, fall down and get up, have discipline and you will conquer what you want.’”
Henrique Ferraz da Silva has been working as a Product Management Analyst for our partner Autron since the beginning of this year. We would like to wish him every success in fulfilling his further professional dreams and look forward to working with him.