Ramón C. Barquín

Dr. Ramón C. Barquín passed away in France on May 20, 2025 at the age of 82. A lifelong traveler, he had spent the week exploring the Dordogne region with his wife of 48 years, Jean, and was preparing to return home to Washington when he passed away peacefully in the night.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Ramón was the son of Colonel Ramón M. Barquin, a high-profile Cuban military officer and diplomat, who attempted an unsuccessful 1956 coup on Batista and was imprisoned. Colonel Barquin was freed and elevated to power by the new Castro regime but became disillusioned with Castro's failure to embrace democracy. He resigned while serving as ambassador to Europe and spent the remainder of his life in exile in the United States.

Growing up in Cuba, young Ramón C. Barquin distinguished himself in both mathematics and in judo. His dreams to compete on the Cuban Olympic judo team were disrupted by political upheaval and exile; however he later made a significant contribution to the sport as a mathematician, by developing a system for judo statistics, and was honored to be invited to judge judo in 4 Olympics.

His undergraduate years were disrupted by training for the Bay of Pigs invasion and by life in exile: he began his studies at the University of Alabama and finished at the University of Puerto Rico, where he moved to help his father found The American Military Academy, a K-12 school. In spite of these challenges, he earned BS and MS degrees in math and engineering and later went on to receive his PhD from MIT in 1974.

After MIT he embarked on a distinguished 20-year career at IBM, including an overseas post in Hong Kong, where he and his family spent 4 years. In 1994, he founded Barquin Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in data warehousing, business intelligence, and knowledge management. He demonstrated visionary leadership in the emerging fields of data science and information ethics: he co-founded and served as the first president of The Data Warehousing Institute, and also founded The Computer Ethics Institute and authored the "Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics" in 1992, which became a foundational ethical framework for the digital age.

In Washington, DC, he was a pillar of the Cuban-American community. He held quarterly luncheon salons at a downtown Spanish restaurant that were attended by Cuban-Americans from all parts of the political spectrum, who came together to discuss issues of relevance to the community. Mel Martinez, former US Senator (R-FL), said "Ramón saw it as his responsibility to provide a unique and important forum to discuss the future of post-Castro Cuba". From the other side, Joe Garcia, former US Representative (D-Miami), said "Ramón knew how hard it would be to get agreement among Cuban-Americans on the steps to take to make Cuba prosperous again, and was willing to put in the work his entire life."

Ramón was remarkable for his encyclopedic mind, his curiosity, and his lifelong passion for both learning and travel, which often went hand in hand. At 82, he was chair of an AI leadership committee at the Cosmos Club and used ChatGPT to plan the itinerary for his and Jean's final trip to the Dordogne. Ramón also loved racquet sports and was an avid squash player for decades, even achieving a personal goal to be the first person to play squash on all 7 continents (Antarctica presented a special challenge). In later years, tennis was his great joy, played whenever possible at Kenwood, the Chevy Chase and Hillsboro Clubs. One of his greatest pleasures was confounding opponents with his "feared" underhand serve.

Ramón is survived by his wife, Jean Barquin; his three children, Ramon Carlos Barquin III (Alexandra Fernandez), Nicolas Barquin (Brooke Barquin), and Elisa Stutts-Barquin (Timothy Stutts); his five grandchildren, Claudia, Beatrice, Ramón Philip, Laia Cecilia and Alice; and his sister, Lilliam Barquin Consuegra.

A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.