Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority for a period of seven years from September 2019, Dr. Vásquez is a Panamanian economist with an extensive and successful career of 40 years in the government sector and in private companies in the area of financial, economic and administrative management. Within the public administration he has held prominent positions such as: Minister of Finance and the Treasury, Minister of Planning and Economic Policy, and Economy and Finance in 2004. He was the first Panamanian Director of Finance of the Panama Canal and later Deputy Administrator and President of the Board of Directors. In the private sector he was an analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank, worked with Rio Tinto Zinc in the development of the Cerro Colorado copper project, has been a consultant in the debt restructuring of companies in Panama and president of General Electric International covering Central America and the Caribbean, as well as Vice-president of the Gas to Power initiative for Latin America from which he retired at the end of 2015 to dedicate himself to his professional practice at Sigma Management Advisors Corp. He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from Villanova University, did a Master's degree in Economics at North Carolina State University, then a Master's degree in Research, Operations and Statistics to finish with a PhD in Managerial Economics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He has been a lecturer in Economics and Finance in Panama and abroad. Apart from his extensive education and professional background, Vásquez has extensive experience as a university lecturer. He was assistant lecturer in Economics at the Panama campus of Florida State University.