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J. Raymond Watson, the engineer considered to have been the creator of Puerto Rico's toll roads system, was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on September 7, 1935, lived in
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico Guaynabo (, ) is a city, suburb of San Juan and municipality in the northern part of Puerto Rico, located in the northern coast of the island, north of Aguas Buenas, south of Cataño, east of Bayamón, and west of San Juan. Guaynabo is spr ...
and died March 24, 2020. With his wife Brunilda he had one son, John, and three grandchildren.


Education

After graduating from San Juan's Central High School in 1952, he obtained two Bachelor's degrees from the University of Puerto Rico's Mayagüez campus, in Civil Engineering (Cum Laude) and in Mathematical Sciences (Magna Cum Laude) in 1956 before completing a Master's degree in Civil Engineering, with Honors, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958. After completing his education, he served as an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Engineering.


Public service

Governor
Luis A. Ferré Don Luis Alberto Ferré Aguayo (February 17, 1904 October 20, 2003) was a Puerto Rican engineer, industrialist, politician, philanthropist, and a patron of the arts. He was the governor of Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1973. He was the founder of the ...
recruited Watson to serve as Executive Director of Puerto Rico's Highways Authority from 1969 to 1972. He established what was then a revolutionary policy in Puerto Rico, the construction of toll roads in which user fees paid the cost of road-building. As a result, the construction of the expressway between Puerto Rico's two largest cities at the time, San Juan and Ponce, leapfrogged and was completed within several years, cutting travel time by two thirds, from almost four hours to one hour and fifteen minutes. After transforming Puerto Rico's road-building activities, Watson served as area director for the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Urb ...
from 1974 until he was recruited in 1977 by Governor Carlos Romero Barceló to serve as the president of the government-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Company until 1979. In 1978 he attempted unsuccessfully to sell the phone system to private enterprise.New York Times, March 16, 1978
/ref> In private practice, he established two engineering firms, Raymond Watson and Associates and Watson & Villate. He also headed Prescon Caribe Inc., Abarca Enterprises and served as President of the Palmas del Mar Company, a self-contained city-within-a-city in Humacao, Puerto Rico. Watson was retired at the time of his dying on March 24, 2020, but had remained an observer of Puerto Rico's political scene and his opinions were quoted frequently in island publications.


See also

*
List of highways in Puerto Rico The highway system in Puerto Rico is composed of approximately of roads in Puerto Rico, maintained by the Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and Public Works (Spanish: ''Departmento de Transportación y Obras Públicas'') or DTOP. The hig ...


References

Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni 20th-century Puerto Rican engineers People from San Juan, Puerto Rico University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez people 1935 births 2020 deaths {{PuertoRico-bio-stub