Gerardo Budowski

Gerardo Budowski (10 June 1925 - 8 October 2014) was a German-Venezuelan chess master.

He was born in Berlin into a family loving chess. His mother drew a game with José Raúl Capablanca in his simultaneous exhibition on 30 October 1925 in Berlin. His father had a friendly relationship with Alexander Alekhine who gave chess lessons to the child prodigy in Paris. Budowski left Nazi Germany for France, and then - during World War II - emigrated to Venezuela, where he obtained citizenship. Since 1952, he resided in Costa Rica.

Dr. Budowski graduated in 1948 as an agricultural engineer from the Universidad Central in Caracas, Venezuela. He subsequently pursued a master's degree at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), located in Turrialba, Costa Rica. In 1962, he obtained his doctoral degree in Forestry from Yale University. He was Director General of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) from 1970 to 1976, and Emeritus Professor of the University for Peace.

He won the Campeón Absoluto de Venezuela title by beating by 6-0 Julio García (Campeón Nacional de Venezuela) in 1951. He also participated in other championships in Costa Rica in the 1950s. He won Costa Rican team championship, playing for Turrialba, in 1965. He represented Venezuela in the Chess Olympiad at Lugano 1968.

He was awarded the International Master title.

Dr. Budowski died of natural causes on October 8th, 2014 in San José, Costa Rica.