IBM TSS: Connecting Cousins over 60 years from Cuba to Carolina

From escaping Castro's Cuba in the early 1960's, to leading the charge in 2020, TSS is a family business.

My family’s connection to IBM started way before I began working for the company in North Carolina 17 years ago. In fact, it started long before I was even born. I didn’t know about this story until after I started working for IBM, but it makes me proud, of both my family and of my company, to this day. The connection began in 1957, prior to Fidel Castro coming into power in Cuba. My cousin, "Nano" (Rodolfo A Garbalosa), began working for IBM as a young IBM technical support engineer. At the time, IBM only had about 100 employees on the island, but the IBM systems ran the majority of the country’s core infrastructure (telephone, utilities, and railroads), not to mention many of the international corporations.

?

In 1959, Fidel Castro overthrew the prior government and brought with him the communist dictatorship that displaced my family and more than a million others since. Shortly after, Castro began taking control over companies’ assets, regardless of whether they were Cuban or internationally owned. American companies such as International Telephone and Telegraph Company and United Fruit Company (after a few corporate transitions now “Chiquita Brands International”) were two examples. Oil refineries owned by multi-national companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil and Texaco were nationalized in August 1960. Cuban-founded international companies like Bacardi were no exception as it was nationalized in October 1960. In fact, there have been over 6,000 claims by U.S. companies of property confiscated by the Cuban government, with the largest 50 accounting for $1.5 billion. IBM is one of those top 50 claims, and was one of the last foreign-owned enterprises to be nationalized in Cuba - in large part because of the regime’s desire to get the latest IBM technology and because of doubt they would be able to to technically operate and service IBM machines.?

?

In the Summer of 1960, Nano went to New York to train on a new machine, the IBM 650, one of the first commercial enterprise computers. Castro’s government ordered three of these systems, but IBM, watching the progression of the Castro regime, stalled delivery and ultimately never did deliver the machines before closing its doors in Cuba on January 2, 1961.

Nano (center wearing light tie) with his class at IBM Field Engineering School

(Rochester, MN 1960)

Prior to shuttering operations, IBM distributed all the money it had locally, which it could not take out of Cuba, amongst its Cuban employees. Unfortunately, Castro found out, ordered all of the checks to be cancelled and pocketed the money for the government instead. By that time, some of the IBMers had already fled the country and had been placed in new roles for IBM in new countries. In another act of kindness, during Christmas that year all IBM employees that had already left Cuba already, received gifts in their new homes from Arthur Watson the President of IBM World Trade Corporation (the international arm of IBM and brother of Thomas Watson Jr, Chairman of IBM).

Nano's Christmas present was an airline ticket out of Cuba on Christmas Day 1960; however, subsequent to realizing the exodus that what was happening, the Cuban government restricted any other IBMers from leaving the country. After sitting at the airport in “la pecera” (the fishbowl) for hours awaiting his flight to leave, he was called out by the Cuban secret police (the “G2”), strip-searched and questioned at gunpoint about IBM before ultimately being told “I have an order not to let anyone associated with IBM to leave the country”. Dejected, Nano left the airport.

?

After a month, still working for IBM (now taken over by the Cuban government), Nano ultimately convinced his new boss, a government appointee who was also an ex-client from the electric utility company, to support him being taken off the “cannot leave” list. In anticipation of his departure, he sent a telegram to notify the former head of IBM Cuba, Marcial Digat, who was working for IBM in New York.?Much to Nano’s surprise, when he arrived in Miami there was an IBMer waiting for him. IBM set him up in a hotel – all expenses paid -?and told him to come to the office the next day. When he did, he was given a month’s salary, told he would have a job, and to take some free time before he got back to work. A week later, he was on his way to New York for training on the latest technology. He ultimately moved to Los Angeles, CA with IBM in 1962 and finished his 34-year career in 1991, with IBM recognizing his starting time in Cuba for purposes of retirement and pension. This story repeated itself for many of the 100 IBM Cuba employees - with several of them later becoming General Managers of various Latin American countries for IBM.

?

As of 2018, there have been an estimated 1.3 million Cubans who have immigrated to the United States. The ways and means by which they arrived has varied greatly. Just like my Dad did as an 12-year-old boy, 14,048 children left Cuba under the guise of a joint operation between the Catholic Church and the U.S. Department of State (Operation “Pedro Pan”). These children, the largest migration of unaccompanied children in the history of the Western hemisphere, were ultimately sent by their parents, leaving their family behind, not knowing whether they would ever be reunited again. Others like my grandfather, who owned a pharmacy, and my grandmother, his pharmacist with three doctoral degrees, gave up everything they had for the promise of freedom. They completely reinvented their lives to do what they thought was best for their family. Then there are tens of thousands of people, so desperate to leave the oppression of the dictatorship, that they attempted to make the 90 mile trek by sea through the Straits of Florida. It’s estimated as few as 50% of those survived the flee to freedom.

?

The story of immigrants seeking a better life in the United States is not new or unique. It’s been going on for hundreds of years and a large part of what has ultimately made our country so great. That population has brought diversity from every corner of the earth, but also shares a singular focus: to make a better life for themselves and their family, knowing they will have freedom (of choice, of thought, of speech) and will have a chance to succeed if they put in the hard work. What is somewhat unique is the relatively unknown actions of a company with a long standing and ongoing commitment to equality and diversity.

?

As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, now almost 60 years since my family first came to the United States from Cuba, I’m incredibly grateful to be able to enjoy the freedom to be part of a company that is committed to improving the challenges we share as employees and citizens of the world around prejudice and inequities. I’m also thankful to now have the opportunity and privilege of leading IBM’s Technology Support Services, the very same global support organization that my cousin began working for in Cuba before it ultimately changed the course of his life forever.

Photo of IBM World Trade office in Havana early in the Castro takeover