Hugo David Storer Tavarez

Hugo David Storer Tavarez (March 8, 1908 – June 28, 1994) was a Puerto Rican oil industrialist, horticulturalist, and writer. He was a founder of the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company He was also a founder of Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity and started the Horticultural Society of Puerto Rico and Club Bonsai de P.R.

Storer Tavarez was born March 8, 1908, in Utuado, Puerto Rico.^[1] While a student at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, Storer Tavaarez and other students founded what was to become Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity on October 22, 1928.^[2] He was later the sixteenth president of Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity, serving in 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1963.^[3][4]

By 1954, Storer Tavaarez was the Director of Promotion of the Puerto Rico Economic Development Administration also known as Fomento. He was one of the founders of the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company.^[5] He was named director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Bureau on July 1, 1953.^[6]

He became interested in horticulture after visiting the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in the late 1940s.^[1] In 1970, Storer Tavaarez founded and was the first president of the Horticultural Society of Puerto Rico.^[1] In July 1977, he organized a group that would later be called Club Bonsai de Puerto Rico to promote bonsai to all corners of the island.^[1] He was known as the "first person of bonsai" in Puerto Rico.^[1]

In 1977, he was the editor of the book Catalogo Filatelico de Puerto Rico (Philatelic Catalog of Puerto Rico) for the Sociedad Filatelica de Puerto Rico.^[7] He also wrote articles that were published in Bonsai: Akadama, Alnus Glutinosa, Bonsai Aesthetics, Bonsai Cultivation and Care, Bonsai Slovakia, Bonsai Styles, Deadwood Bon (University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1230561509).

He died on June 28, 1994 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.^[1]

• List of Puerto Ricans