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Tijuana icon, Bustamante family patriarch dies at 95

By Blanca Gonzalez | SDUT
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 5:50 p.m.

Alfonso Bustamante Sr. was a Tijuana bank teller in the 1940s but it wasn’t long before the visionary entrepreneur had worked his way up to a position of wealth and influence and by the 1970s was rubbing shoulders with the Mexican president.

The patriarch of one of Baja California’s most powerful and connected families, Mr. Bustamante amassed his fortune through a large, private utility business that sold cooking and heating gas. He built a high-rise complex of twin skyscrapers in Tijuana that has become one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.

Family holdings eventually included hotels, industrial parks and other commercial real estate, while philanthropic efforts benefited education and health projects. One of his sons, Carlos, is the current mayor of Tijuana and another son, Alfonso Jr., is director of binational affairs for the city.

Mr. Bustamante died Wednesday at his Tijuana home. He was 95.

A native of Ensenada, Mr. Bustamante grew up in Tijuana, the city he would help develop as a young businessman. “He was a doer. He started his (gas) business with a lot of work, dedication and vision,” said longtime friend Gaston Luken. “He knew that Baja California was growing and it was going to need gas. He ended up with the largest gas company in the state.” The family sold the bulk of the gas company to a U.S. company in the 1990s.

Former Tijuana mayor Kurt Honold said Mr. Bustamante was well-known and respected on both sides of the border. He was one of the founders of the modern Tijuana and was a supporter of many educational and health organizations, Honold said. Mr. Bustamante had the vision to be among the first to build industrial parks in the region, which are now the sites of maquiladoras, he said.

“The towers he built (downtown) have become a symbol of Tijuana,” Honold said. “They always appear on promotional materials for the city.” The Plaza Aguacaliente and Grand Hotel Tijuana are commonly known as “Las Torres” or The Towers among locals. A binational businessman, he also owned an interest in the Atlas Hotels chain in the 1970s.

Mr. Bustamante was born March 5, 1915, in the port city of Ensenada, to Alejandro and Josefina Bustamante. The family moved to Tijuana when he was a child. In the 1940s, he worked at Banco Del Pacifico, where he met and befriended businessman John Alessio of San Diego and Roberto de la Madrid, who would later become governor of the state. The three remained friends for many years.

Mr. Bustamante married the former Ema Anchondo in 1940. She predeceased him in 1995.

In addition to helping develop Tijuana, Mr. Bustamante was instrumental in the early growth of Project Concern International, a San Diego-based health and humanitarian organization that helps people in 16 countries. Uli Heine, Project Concern’s associate director of development, said Mr. Bustamante was honored by the group recently for his contributions. “He was very important to us, he opened up a lot of doors south of the border,” she said. In addition to helping build a Tijuana hospital, he left a legacy through generations of Bustamantes who support Project Concern and other charitable endeavors, Heine said.

Mr. Bustamante was on the board of directors of CETYS, a private university system in Mexico.

He is survived by four children, Ema, Alfonso Jr., Carlos and Norma; 14 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at noon today at Espiritu Santo Catholic Church in the Chapultepec area of Tijuana.


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I had the honor and pleasure to have met the man on a couple of occasions - a real visionary. A true giant of a man in the ways that really mattered and a great loss to Tijuana, Baja California and Mexico.

He will be missed...