“Doing what you enjoy”: Ricardo Markous’s philosophy
He completed 45 years in the same group and explains it with a single word. Between multimillion-dollar projects, he maintains routines he does not negotiate.
“The subject of energy fascinates me because it moves the world and will always be needed,” says Ricardo Markous when asked why he spent 45 years in the same place. The phrase condenses the driving force of an entire career within Grupo Techint, where he now leads Tecpetrol and from where he admits that, if someone had told him on his first day, he would have thought it was madness.
The explanation he offers is not about strategy or numbers. It is about an idea he repeats to those who are starting out: people have to do what they enjoy. “There is an opportunity in Vaca Muerta, but they have to put passion into what they do,” he says. It is the advice that shapes his view of work and, according to him, also his own path.
A vocation that began in the mountains
Before energy, there was the mountain range. Markous studied civil engineering with a specialization in hydraulics at the University of Buenos Aires because he wanted to build dams: he liked the mountains. He never built one, but that attraction stayed with him throughout his life. In the late 1990s he used to climb — an image of him on Aguja Frey, in Cerro Catedral, belongs to that period — and today he maintains his connection with physical activity in his own way: he goes cycling on weekends with a group of friends. “That also keeps me active,” he says.
Sport and rest occupy a deliberate place in his routine. Markous considers them part of performance, not a pause outside it: he says that being physically and spiritually well gives him more energy for work. He even applies this to vacations, which he takes in order to return with more drive to the projects ahead.
Family as support
The other pillar is family. He has four children and seven grandchildren, and describes Sunday lunch barbecue as something “almost sacred” to bring everyone together. In his account, that balance between personal life and the responsibility of leading large-scale projects does not appear as a tension to be resolved, but as the source that allows him to sustain his pace.
The project he remembers most fondly
If there is one project he associates with enjoyment, it is Camisea, in Peru, which he defines as the most fun thing he did in the group. The construction of two pipelines that cross the jungle, climb to an altitude of 4,800 meters and descend toward the sea, with 6,000 people working, left him with both technical satisfaction and a lesson on how to face adversity. From that stage he also draws a lesson he repeats: when one door closes, another one opens.
Throughout the conversation in which he reviewed his 45 years with the company, Markous returns again and again to the motivations he found at each stage. At TGN, the expansion of the gas transportation system; then Camisea; later, the Pesquería Power Plant in Mexico; after that, Fortín de Piedra. At every stage, he says, a new reason to stay appeared.
The message to new generations
That passion is what he tries to pass on to those who join the company. He asks them to share knowledge, not to be afraid to question, to know how to recognize when they are wrong and to give “that extra mile” that allows them to grow. To his own first-day self, he would say to be more patient, that effort bears fruit and that he should work with joy instead of becoming frustrated. And he sums up the invitation he makes to younger people with an idea that, for him, explains almost everything: to come and have fun.
Today, his enthusiasm has a concrete destination. His motivation, he says, is focused on Los Toldos II Este, the field he expects to see operating in 2027 and where he wants to apply everything he has learned alongside the company’s younger people.