FEATURE
BUILDING the
Miguel Alemañy
R&D Director
Procter & Gamble
Editor’s Note: After this article was
written, Miguel announced his
retirement from Procter & Gamble,
following his 40-year career.
BORN AND RAISED:
Puerto Rico, USA
SPEAKS FLUENTLY:
Spanish, English, and Italian
ENGINEERS MAKE LIFE
BETTER: “Doctors cure patients,
but engineers make the machines
that doctors use to cure patients.
Pilots fly people around the
world, but engineers build the
planes that pilots use to fly people
around the world. And on and on
and on.”
GIVING BACK: Miguel Chairs
the Board of Directors of the
Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers and offers workshops
around the country on Hispanic
issues. “I derive pleasure from
sharing information, helping
people understand, helping people
create better work environments
for their employees, and generally
helping Hispanics progress.”
HIS NEED FOR SPEED: “I
used to compete professionally
in racing when I was in college,
and I’ve raced for most of my life.
I have a GTR that I track up in
Ohio, and I’m looking at buying a
McLaren to also track up in Ohio.
So I’m a car enthusiast and so is
my son, Miguel—it’s genetic.”
FUTURE
of Fragrance
An engineer’s learnings on the journey from
Pampers to perfume
DESCENDANT OF ‘PERFUME
PEOPLE’
“When I was 15, I mixed my mother’s
Paco Rabanne coriander with my men’s
Paco Rabanne… and created my own
scent…”
Miguel Alemañy, Research & Development
Director for The Procter & Gamble Company
(P&G) and Member of Fragrance Creators
Association’s Board of Directors, comes from
a long line of “perfume people.” Growing
up around San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, and
Lares, Puerto Rico, he says his family has
always been scent seekers. Even before they
became a common household fixture, he
recalls scented candles at family gatherings.
His earliest scent memory is being drenched
with his aunt’s 4711 perfume, a traditional
German Eau de Cologne made by Mäurer &
Wirtz. “She used to bathe me and my cousin
in that stuff,” he says. “She said I liked it,
but in reality, I hated it—she would pour the
bottle over our heads!”
For Miguel, smells are more than just
fragrance, though. “Smell is everything,”
he says. “I come from a family of coffee
growers, so my family had coffee planta-
tions. And one of my very early memories
is when I was a kid—maybe 3 years old—I
remember wearing these flannel ‘footie’
pajamas. I remember the way they felt as I
was walking, and I remember the distinct
smell near the back of the farmhouse where
they roasted the coffee. Every time I’m near
a roaster, it’s like—boom—I’m 3 years old
again. That smell has been with me forever.”
While he wouldn’t call himself a scent
seeker, he has always enjoyed fragrances—
and been an innovator. “When I was 15, I
mixed my mother’s Paco Rabanne Coriander
with my men’s Paco Rabanne—50/50—
and created my own scent. In high school,
people would say, ‘Where did you buy this
from?’ I’d say, ‘You can’t buy this. This is
unique.’”
THE ENGINEERING LIFE
“I’ve always known that I was sort of an
engineer. I just didn’t know the name of
what I wanted to be.”
Miguel was born an engineer. “As a kid, I
always took things apart,” he says. “I wanted
to know how things worked. I got a camera
when I was 6 years old, and within two days
it was in pieces. And my mom was so upset
because I was tearing the camera up, but the
next day I reassembled it and got it working
again and she couldn’t figure it out.”
Derived from the Latin words “ingeni-
are” (meaning, to create, generate, contrive,
devise) and ingenium (or, cleverness),
engineers “make things, make things work,
and make things work better,” according to
the Royal Academy of Engineering. “They
use their creativity to design solutions to
the world’s problems… and help build the
future. They work in every area that affects
people.” That sentence tracks perfectly with
Miguel and his life and career trajectory.
He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science
Degree in Chemical Engineering from the
Universidad de Puerto Rico—all the while
also running his own business on the side as
an electronics reseller. He later also started
but was one class short of earning his Mas-
ter’s of Business Administration from Xavi-
Issue 1, 2019 | FRAGRANCENOTES.ORG | 9