Retired lecturer and doctor in industrial engineering, Manuel Fernández, passes away

Manuel Fernández González, PhD in Industrial Engineering and retired lecturer at the School of Engineering (Comillas ICAI) and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (Comillas ICADE), passed away on 20 August in Santander at the age of 91.

Manuel Fernández held a degree in Physics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He later obtained a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, where he also obtained a doctorate in the same discipline.

In 1974 he joined Comillas Pontifical University as a lecturer in metallurgy, which he combined with his work as technical director at the cutlery company Unión de Orfebres. In the mid-1980s, he joined the Department of Industrial Organisation as a lecturer, a department he headed between 1992 and 1998.

Fernández also taught at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, where he was a lecturer in production organisation as part of the E-4 programme.

Thanks to his work experience, first at Pegaso and then at Unión de Orfebres, he developed an innovative teaching methodology focused on real cases and their resolution, which allowed him to use them in a transversal way in the different subjects he taught.

His former students remember him for his "rigour and commitment", for "his work to modernise the school" and for the impact he left on their careers.

Manuel Fernández was also the father of Mercedes Fernández, director of the University Institute for Migration Studies (IUEM) and ICAI lecturer.