Puerto Rico: El Peyton Place

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Sanchez was one of the founding members of the Popular Democratic Party in 1939 (along with powerful former Governor Luis Muñoz Marin and Jeannette's father, the late Ernesto Ramos Antonini) and has spent most of his life in politics. After graduating from Ohio State University, he worked briefly as a civil engineer, then headed Puerto Rico's Transportation Authority, served as city manager of San Juan and later as Muñoz's righthand man. Though lacking his predecessor's charisma, Sanchez nevertheless kept the island economy booming along at a 10% annual growth rate, created 10,000 new jobs a year and strove hard to involve the jibaros (peasants) in politics. Not satisfied simply to follow in Muñoz's footsteps, he replaced many Popular Democratic Party hacks with bright young newcomers. One of them was Jeannette Ramos Buonomo.