Raúl, innovator and mechanic enthusiast
Turner, metal worker, crankshaft rectifier, innovator, driller, machine operator, mechanic. As incredible as all this may seem, this is what Raúl Martínez Corales is, a worker at the Pedro Alcides Heredia Contramaestre Industrial Components Workshop.
He studied mechanics, turning and milling and as he says: “in itself this is creating, manufacturing parts, transforming”. It was what he liked. Since he was very young, he began to innovate, to solve problems in his workplace. He has been in this business for 40 years now.
He proudly confesses his passion for mechanics, not only for the construction of parts, but also for the repair of vehicle parts, bearings and crankshafts.
How did you achieve make your dreams come true and solve such difficult problems in an industry?
“I always wanted to improve myself. In the company there were courses for workers and training in mechanics so that engines and elements of Soviet cars were repaired. Later on I enrolled in the University, in the course for workers, an engineering that I did not finish due to personal problems. But in order to take advantage of the subjects that I had passed, I enrolled in the Pedagogical Univeristy. There I graduated from the specialty of Machinery Construction with good results, but I never worked directly as a teacher.”
Could you talk about some of your innovations?
“We have worked for tourism in the Tercer Frente municipality solving the clutch discs of the cars. At América Libre sugar mill, we found an obsolete technology that currently working thanks to the innovators. We are, let us say “the godparents” of the engine room of this industry, recommended by José Ramón Machado Ventura, Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.”
We have carried out technical solutions in the municipality of Palma Soriano, basically in the Polygraph, in the Dairy Industry and in the Road Maintenance Company.
“I also made my contributions in agriculture, specifically in the productive pole of Laguna Blanca in the municipality of Contramaestre. When we talk about the Pedro Heredia Innovators Workshop, people take it for granted that they are going to solve the problems that exist.”
With so many years creating and transforming parts and machinery, what qualities do you consider indispensable in an innovator?
“An innovator should have a sense of commitment, a sense of belonging, a willingness to work, to manufacture without expecting anything in return. He/She should feel satisfaction when solving a problem in a company, a factory, a school or a hospital.”
Martínez Corales’ working day does not end when he leaves the workshop. When he arrives home, he meets chauffeurs and other people who demand his services. An adaptation for an old Chevrolet, an engine that nobody like him repairs or another arrangement that only he solves with the mastery that gives knowledge and ingenuity.
Written by Radio Grito de Baire
