Rogelio A. Pineiro

Rogelio A. Pineiro, 85, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, passed away in his sleep at home surrounded by his family on July 3, 2016. Rogelio was born January 20, 1931 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba to Rogelio Pineiro and Paula Blanco. He graduated from the University of Havana with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1955, and on February 14, 1959 he married Dora Irene Rojo in Havana. They left Cuba in 1962 to escape communism, spent two years in Buenos Aires, Argentina and fourteen years in El Salvador, Central America, before making Baton Rouge their home in 1979. Rogelio had many passions, including his family and his work for Alma Plantation, where he designed and serviced the instrumentation and control systems required to produce raw sugar from sugar cane. He loved listening to classical music, solving complex mathematical problems and riddles, reading and quoting poetry, and traveling through Europe and the Americas. He was an engineer at heart, devoting the first fifteen years of his career to the emerging plastics industry, first in Cuba and Argentina, and later on in El Salvador, where he grew a small start-up into a large corporation. In 1970 he was introduced to sugar mills in El Salvador and it quickly turned into a lifelong passion. He became the chief control systems engineer at various mills throughout Central America and Panama before joining the sugar cane industry of Louisiana in 1979. A respected engineering figure at several sugar mills, including Sinclair, Evan Hall and Sterling, he presented papers on his innovative control system designs at various national sugar cane industry conferences. But he is particularly remembered for his work these past thirty-five years at Alma Plantation, which became his second home and the staff his second family. Rogelio is remembered by his wife Dora Irene of 57 years; three children, Rogelio J. Pineiro and his wife Lory of Austin, Texas, Dora Pineiro Telleria and her husband Lorenzo of Baton Rouge, and Irene Pineiro Gomez and her late husband Julio Gomez of Baton Rouge; nine grandchildren, Julio Cesar Gomez and his wife Caroline Ha, Paola Gomez, Cameron Pineiro, Eduardo Gomez, Rogelio Gomez, Juan Pablo Gomez, Lorenzo Telleria, Maria Eugenia Telleria, and Carlos Ignacio Telleria; many loving nieces, nephews and other extended family and friends. Visitation will be held on Wednesday, July 6th at 9:00 am at St. George Catholic Church, followed by a mass at 11:00am and a reception. Father Eliecer M. Grimaldos, M.C.M., will be officiating. A private burial will follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Baton Rouge Hispanic Apostolate.