My Various Areas of Interest

I am a man of many interests; and my interests are quite varied. When I was in high school, I was interested in Mathematics, Science, History, and Religion. I continue to be interested in all the aforementioned topics. My love for Mathematics and Science helped a lot when I studied chemical engineering in college. I excelled in subjects in those areas when I was in college.

In fact, I got very interested in Nuclear Chemistry at that time that I would go to the United States Information Service (USIS) Library at Colon, Cebu City, Philippines to be able to read up on the subject and borrow some books. I remember writing reaction equations on nuclear fission and fusion on pieces of paper and taped the paper-pieces on the wall next to my bed in my boarding house. When I completed engineering, I actually thought of becoming a design engineer because I just simply loved working with numbers.

I continue to love anything about History. In fact, a lot of my hobbies are somewhat related to this interest, such as stamp, bill, coin and history book collections; and interest in antiques and collectibles. I also love to visit museums. In my travels abroad, I had gone to many museums like the Tokyo Museum, The Melbourne Museum, The Louvre in Paris, Istanbul Museum, the Sistene Chapel (a museum) in the Vatican, Field Museum in Chicago, California State Museum at Sacramento and a lot more.

I consider myself a buff of the American Civil War (ACW). I have about 100 volumes of books on this topic alone. I even subscribed at one time to a magazine that specialized on the American Civil War. Whenever we go visiting in the US, my wife and I try to put in some time to visit known ACW sites. With the help of my brother (Eddie Echavez who resides with his family at Morton Grove, IL), we had visited the vast memorial site and the old residence of Abe Lincoln at Springfield, IL; the place of Gen. Ulysses Grant at Galena, IL. and the great ACW battlefield at Gettysburg, PA (which has a nice museum). I admire Abraham Lincoln, the president during the years of the ACW.

My wife and I also had visited the Confederate State of America's presidential mansion and the Confederate cemetery at Richmond, VA, and had a guided tour of the White House (Washington, DC), which is "full of history", and the home and gravesite of the first US president, George Washington.

I also had studied intently the history of the Philippines. I am an avid admirer of Jose Rizal (our national hero). I have a collection of books on Rizal. I like books written by Ambeth Ocampo, a Filipino historian, who had written about personalities involved in the struggle against foreign oppression during the late 19th century. I had seen the monument of Rizal in Madrid, Spain and his bust (statue) in Acapulco, Mexico. I am also interested in American and European History. I have visited a lot of historical sites in the US and Europe.

I love to read the Holy Bible and study biblical teachings and principles. I also study teachings of other religions. I have visited important Christian places such as Israel (had a five-day tour there) and Rome. I had also been to the Lourdes Shrine in France; Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico and had toured places where Christianity started in Asia Minor (Turkey). I completed a one-year study (of two year masters program) at a known Evangelical Christian seminary in Metro Manila.

And I also have areas of interest in other fields. In Management, I love Strategic Management (SM), Operations and Production Management (OPM), and Strategic Human Resource Management (HRM). I am a strong advocate of Total Quality Management (TQM), Total Environmental Quality Management (TEQM), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and Strategic Customer Care. I like HRM that leverages the manpower resources of a company to provide the competitive edge, and the special topics of Organizational Culture and Culture Change Management.

I also follow developments on Climate Change/Global Warming and Higher Education. As an academic, I conduct research work on students' study habits, factors incoming college students consider as important on their selection of a college or university to enroll in, academe-industry linkage, entrepreneurship and business, environmental management and quality of education. I also conduct seminars, workshops and/or lectures on various topics such as leadership, TQM and sub-topics, climate change, research, strategic management and specific needs of students particularly higher-year students to prepare them for the world-of-work.