Ozires Silva

Ozires Silva is a Brazilian aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur, born on 8 January 1931 in Bauru, in the state of São Paulo, who is best known as the founder of Embraer, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer. Trained first as a military pilot and later as an aeronautical engineer at the Aeronautics Technological Institute, he became lead engineer of the Bandeirante aircraft project, whose first prototype flew in October 1968. When private industry declined to build the aircraft in series, his efforts helped bring about a government-owned manufacturer, and he became its president in July 1969. He left in 1986, served briefly as president of Petrobras and as Minister of Infrastructure in 1990 and 1991, returned to Embraer from 1991 to 1995 to conduct its privatization, and was president of the airline Varig from 2000 to 2002. He has also written books on the creation of Embraer and on entrepreneurship.