UPM Pulp Matters 2/2023

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A FAMILY BUSINESS Ana Inés Lucián’s transport company was under threat during the pandemic. Now the Uruguayan family business founded by her mother has made a huge growth leap, driving workers to the UPM Paso de los Toros pulp mill 365 days a year.

TEXT: KUKKA-MARIA AHOKAS PHOTOS: ANA INÉS LUCIÁN

A na Inés Lucián , coordinates bus journeys from her hometown of Durazno, Uruguay. The transport company’s 17 drivers take tourists, business travellers and workers to their destinations every day of the year along Uruguay’s busy highways. “But staying in Durazno was not originally in my plans. I studied accounting and went to work in the capital, Montevideo, where I stayed for several years. However, here we are again,” she says. I nes’ mother founded Lucián Transporte y Turismo in 1995. At first, the business was small scale – minibuses, or micros in Uruguayan slang, transported children on school trips. In the early 2000s Uruguay was hit by an economic crisis, but despite that Lucián’s family business was

going strong. They expanded operations to business transportation and made cooperation agreements with travel agencies that needed trips for tourists. “Thank God, despite the crisis, the company was growing slowly but constantly,” Lucián says. The family needed help and asked Ana Inés Lucián to come back from Montevideo. She was faced with a choice: to stay in the capital or to go back to her home city? “I had to make the decision to support my family, as I saw that more responsibility was falling on their shoulders. I decided to devote myself to this because, after all, the company was founded by my mother.” Lucián’s family business is not uncommon in Uruguay – about 23% of the country’s population is involved in running a company, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The number has risen continuously in the

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PUL P MAT TERS 02/2023