The Puerto Rico Economic Development Administration, known as "Fomento" in Spanish, was created in the 1940s and for many years was the main government agency responsible for the dramatic industrialization of Puerto Rico from the 1950s to the 1990s. The agency was recently merged into the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, or PRIDCO, which for years had operated as Fomento's subsidiary. Hugo David Storer Tavarez sevred as the director of promotion for some years.[1]
Fomento's first administrator was Teodoro Moscoso, who was the brainchild of Puerto Rico's conversion from an agrarian society to an industrialized society, before moving on to greater things, such as heading President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and serving as United States Ambassador to Venezuela. From 1988 to 1992 William Riefkohl was the Sub administrator of Fomento.[2]