At a society party one evening, where the two teenagers were performing as musicians in the orchestra, Cespedes pointed out Alfredo Galindo Quiroga, a distinguished gentleman, and indicated "he is an engineer and is working on the construction of the reservoir dam at La Angostura--I want to be like him."
During one high school summer vacation, Gonzalez and a friend went on a camping/bicycling trip across the Bolivian altiplano from Cochabamba to Tiwanaku to visit the archaeological site and admire the megalithic stonework--this was a prelude to a career as a structural engineer.
As a young man, Walter Gonzalez was offered a scholarship to the Juilliard School, which he declined, preferring instead to study civil engineering at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA) in La Paz, Bolivia.
During his university days in La Paz, Gonzalez was able to support himself (room and board, clothing, academic books and supplies) from his earnings from playing the violin in carnaval season orchestras.
These skills would prove to be beneficial to Gonzalez in university coursework requiring draftmanship and, later, in building a photo library of his experiences in the Alto Beni.
[2] As the top student in his graduating class, Walter Gonzalez was awarded, on August 29, 1952, the inaugural Premio Vicente Burgaleta, named after the Spanish-born founder and first dean of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA) school of engineering.
The master of ceremonies for awarding the prize was the dean of the school of engineering, Hugo Mancilla Romero, who would have a close professional relationship with Gonzalez during two decades.
In 1954, Gonzalez received a faculty appointment as the professor of Projective Geometry at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres school of engineering.
Concurrent with his academic and military duties, Gonzalez also worked at the Empresa Constructora Rafael Gisbert construction company from 1950 to 1955, being responsible for the calculations for reinforced concrete in the building projects.
[7] Gonzalez returned to Bolivia in 1959, just in time to witness the euphoric and multitudinary homecoming that Jaime Laredo received in La Paz for winning the Queen Elisabeth Competition musical prize.
In 1960, Gonzalez received a faculty appointment as the professor of Structures and Pre-stressed Concrete at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres school of engineering.
In his opinion, as recorded in a personal notebook, his most outstanding students were Hugo Belmonte, Julio Ponce, Andres Petricevic, Fily Estrada, Orestes Rosuce, Jose Luis Vega, Miguel Catacora, Jaime del Llano, Mariano Quispe, Alcides Reguerin, Edgar Pozo, and Abdon Calderon.
[5] His wife Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez was a university librarian,[5] award-winning bibliographer,[5][9] president of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, and founding editor of the Bolivian Studies Journal.
Son Javier Gonzalez-Sfeir, a graduate of Harvard Law School, served on the Board of Directors of the Bolivian American Chamber of Commerce.
[17] Fulfilling his duties for the Alto Beni Development Project, Gonzalez also directed the construction of the staging encampment, the Caranavi Hospital, the airplane landing strip at Santa Ana, numerous schools and clinics and other infrastructure.
Furthermore, Gonzalez was responsible for promoting the colonization of the area with several thousand settlers from the altiplano and establishing centers for agricultural production and the fishery at Piquendo.
Once during these times, Gonzalez was accused of being a Communist by a USAID civilian administrator, which charge was refuted categorically by Colonel Edward Fox, the US Air Force Attache in Bolivia[19] and a neighbor, who stated: "I see him in church every Sunday morning with his family."
By letter dated October 13, 1964, Gonzalez received a formal joint invitation from Ramiro Paz Cerruto, son of President Victor Paz Estenssoro, Hugo Antezana and Eduardo Monrroy-Block to join the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) political party;[20] Gonzalez politely declined preferring to remain an apolitical technocrat.
In August 1965, Gonzalez represented Bolivia at the Meeting of Latin American Governments Members of the Congreso Interamericano de Migraciones Internas in Montevideo, Uruguay.
On the social front, in 1965 Gonzalez and his wife hired a young Carlos Palenque, then part of the troubadour duo "Los Dos Caminantes," to perform at a going-away party for Major Borg.
[2] In July 1966, Gonzalez served as an electoral court judge for the 1966 Bolivian general election, which was won by the Rene Barrientos/Luis Adolfo Siles ticket.
Thus, when his wife Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez read a note in the classified section of a La Paz newspaper in early 1965 advertising private German lessons, he welcomed the opportunity.
He gave his wife approval to hire Senorita Laura Gutierrez Bauer, who presented herself as a German-Argentine, for German language classes for their two oldest sons.
[25] Mrs. Gonzalez thought that Miss Gutierrez Bauer was a charismatic and highly skilled teacher, who had the latest in miniature tape recording equipment and educational materials, such as the Kinderduden picture books.
She died of gunfire on August 31, 1967 in an ambush as her guerrilla column attempted to ford a tributary of the Rio Grande river in eastern Bolivia.
In 1967, disenchanted with the military takeover of most Bolivian government agencies that began in June 1965 with the co-presidency of General Alfredo Ovando Candia, Gonzalez decided to return to the United States.
Early in 1969, Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, vice-president of Bolivia, visited Gonzalez in Urbana, Illinois, presumably to discuss the scheduled 1970 Bolivian general election.
[26] In 1974, ever nostalgic for his homeland, Gonzalez took a short leave of absence from Clark, Dietz & Associates to work with the engineering consulting firm Prudencio Claros in La Paz, Bolivia.
Walter Gonzalez a la Excelencia Académica for the top civil engineering student in the graduating at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres.