A time for celebration and acknowledgment
The Ilhéus Business Association pays tribute to builder Emílio Odebrecht on the 71st anniversary of the completion of that institution’s headquarters
written by ◦ José Enrique Barreiro photos by ◦ Almir Bindilatti

In February 1932, builder Emílio Odebrecht delivered the blueprints for the Ilhéus Business Association’s headquarters building to its president, Misael Tavares. A little over two years later, on July 14, 1934, Emílio delivered the keys to the building that symbolized the economic might of the once-powerful cocoa planting industry. The association is headquartered there to this day.

Held on July 14, 2005, the celebrations of the 71st anniversary of the completion of this project included a tribute by the Ilhéus Business Association to the builder Emílio Odebrecht (1894-1962). Emílio’s daughter Gerda Odebrecht attended the ceremony as the Odebrecht family’s representative.

Held in a packed auditorium, the tribute began with a dramatization of the moment when Emílio Odebrecht handed the plans for the building to Misael Tavares, one of the leading planters known as “cocoa colonels,” performed by local actors. By that time, Emílio had already built the mansion in which Misael lived, as well as the Ilhéus Hotel, the first building in Bahia outside the state capital equipped with an elevator. The dramatization showed that when Emílio handed over the blueprints, he was accompanied by young Osório de Carvalho, the engineer responsible for the execution of that project. Osório’s widow, Janira Amorim de Carvalho, and other members of his family were also present at the ceremony.

The current President of the Ilhéus Business Association, José Leite de Souza, gave a speech saying that: “This institution wanted to pay homage to its past, and therefore it chose Emílio Odebrecht as a way of publicly expressing its gratitude for the lovely and solid legacy he built for us.”

The speakers at the tribute ceremony also included Professor Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa, whose talk titled “Being an Entrepreneur” was based on the eponymous book he has written to analyze the entrepreneurial thinking of Norberto Odebrecht. Antonio Carlos said that Norberto’s thinking and works stem directly from his father, Emílio Odebrecht, and other predecessors. “The entrepreneur Norberto Odebrecht’s education began with a solid family upbringing whose essence was the spirit of service,” he said.

The President of the Ilhéus Business Association presented Gerda Odebrecht with a diploma awarding Emílio Odebrecht the posthumous title of Benefactor Member of that institution. She thanked him for the recognition and expressed her “immense joy” at being in a building that her father built and seeing that “this structure is still sound, beautiful and very well cared for.” Gerda observed that the city of Ilhéus played an important role in the history of Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. “Therefore, in addition to thanking the Ilhéus Business Association, I would also like everyone who trusted the builder Emílio Odebrecht 71 years ago: as you can see, they were right to do so,” she concluded.

João Sá, Márcio Polidoro and José Raimundo Lima, from Odebrecht S.A., attended the tribute ceremony.