BAR TODAY || Official Quarterly Publication of the Bureau of Agricultural Research

The making of a national team leader
by Rita T. dela Cruz

April-June 2000
Volume 2 No. 2

Dr. Glenn D. Aguilar graduated valedictorian in high school and pursued in 1980 a degree in Marine Fisheries in the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) where he graduated cum laude. He was a PFEM Scholarship Awardee all throughout his college years. He got his master's degree in engineering from the University of Washington. It was within this year that he won the World Bank Graduate Scholarship Award and the Graduate Paper Award. He became a research student at the Department of Naval Architecture & Ocean Engineering at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Eventually, he continued his studies by pursuing doctorate and post-doctorate degrees in Engineering and Research, respectively.

He started his professional career as a research aide in 1983 at UPV. He worked his way up the academic ladder all the way to becoming an Associate Professor.

He held several positions - study leader of various projects, including two World Bank-funded researches, project leader of two ship hull software development projects and one comparative study. Dr. Aguilar presently holds the positions as Director of the Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanology and Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Development, both in UPV.

To date, he has published 10 scientific articles in various locally and internationally recognized journals, five books, two proceedings, and a student paper. He is the author of 12 paper presentations. He has been resource speaker in various symposia, trainings and seminars in recognition of his vast knowledge and expertise.

In 1999, he was assigned as the Network Team Leader of the National Capture Fisheries Research Development and Extension Network of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR). Coincidentally, Dr. Aguilar was also responsible in the Capture Fisheries RDE Network webpage development. He is also the main proponent of an ongoing high-impact project (HIP) entitled, A Knowledge-based Decision Support and Adaptive System for Coastal Resources Offshore Fisheries Development. This is an information system development that can be used as a tool for policy decision in fisheries management and development. It aims to: support the making of rational, scientifically based decisions by the local government units or management bodies for fisheries resource management; facilitate adoption of sustainable and appropriate technology approaches for users of the resource; guide in the planning of interventions such as protected areas by mandated agencies for critical areas, and provide an interface for the forecasting of fish supply available for utilization.

He was recently appointed by UP President Francisco Nemenzo as the Chairman of the Information Systems Committee for the whole UP System.

His other relevant skills include Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering (ship design); Ship Hull Design Software Development (computer graphics programming, software development); Internet/Intranet Based Development (Java and CGI/Perl programming, HTML authoring, Unix Systems Administration, WWW Server Administration, etc.); Knowledge-Based Systems Development (Macintosh Programming, Nexpert Object, Knowledge Acquisition and Expert System Software Development); Programming and Database Construction (Visual Basic, Quickbasic and C Programming, Unix Workstations and Macintosh Systems).

And once again, he was tapped to lead a project that entails a visionary attitude and, of course, computer skills.