Alfredo Desages was born at Ingeniero Jacobacci in the Patagonia, on December 27, 1945. He studied at the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, and obtained an Electrical Engineering degree in 1971. He became Assistant Professor in 1977, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1983, and then to Full Professor in 1987. He was a Principal Investigator of the Research Commission of the State of Buenos Aires. Alfredo did not pursue an advanced degree nor went abroad to an American or European university for higher education for some historical reasons. Nevertheless, he was at the same time both a student and his teacher, the researcher and his advisor, with a very strong lifelong self-study capabilities. Furthermore, he had no close "model" to follow since most of the Faculty in the Electrical Engineering Department were forced to resign due to the well-known governmental crisis in the middle of 1970's, when Alfredo was a Teaching Assistant. He created his own model and followed it: excellence in university professorship. Having only two or three personal collections like the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems and the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, he began his fascinating journey in research by impossing himself the highest possible standards in the field. Slowly but steadily, he began to supervise many final works of undergraduate students, leading to Seminar and Final Projects in several subjects of the electrical and electronics engineering disciplines. Very soon this activity evolved into graduate work and research covering a vast area like electromagnetic field theory, circuit theory, signal processing, digital filtering, optimization theory, approximation theory, bifurcation theory, systems stability theory, and linear and nonlinear controls (robust control, process control, variable structure, adaptive control, and so on). He published more than 50 significant papers on these subjects, which were timely and very much welcome by his peers and disciples. They were the result of almost 20 years of his academic activities, with an average of more than 2 undergraduate students per year working with him. His work as an advisor was remarkable, especially so when recalling that graduate work and research in most Engineering areas were well underdeveloped and extremely unorganized. It is amazing, even for today's graduate students supervision standards in Latin America, that he directed the fellowship training of more than 16 graduate students within a period of less than 15 years. Further, he directed 5 Ph.D. theses, including the first Ph.D. thesis in the field of Control Systems in Argentina (1991).

Alfredo was very active in several Academic and Administrative Committees at the University level, mainly with the Council of Scientific Investigations and the School of Graduate Studies. He was the impelling force to create the excellent graduate programs in the Department of Electrical Engineering, in the area of Control Systems, including both Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees. He was permanently remembered by the electrical engineering students who had passed his first course in "Teoría de Circuitos" (Circuit Theory I), in which he explained in an extraordinarily simple manner the beauty of the convolution operation, the usefulness of the frequency response, and the rudiments of nonlinear circuit analysis. In the early 1980's, he began to teach an undergraduate course dealing with the analysis and stability of nonlinear networks. That course was called Circuit Theory III and it was recommended to students who had taken a standard Digital Signal Processing course called Circuit Theory II. Early in the 1990's, he taught regularly a graduate course in Nonlinear Systems following the material of M. Vidyasagar's well-known textbook. He was a precursor in introducing those subjects in Argentina, perhaps in the entire South America region.

One simple anecdote describes his continuous search for excellence: when I was still an undergraduate student, I asked him for a book to start my studies of nonlinear dynamics via the phase-portrait qualitative analysis. I said that I had a nice control theory book written by a famous scientist, and asked for his opinion about using it as a reference. He said that this book touches the subject only superficially, and he instead recommended me to start with the classical books of Andronov and Minorsky. Those works certainly master the subject but I was only an undergraduate student at the time! As one can see, that was his standard.

Overall Alfredo was an excellent researcher and very friendly gentleman with many wonderful characters. He was a mentor and tutor for many students (his office door was opened to everybody from 8:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night on almost every working day), an unconditional and a sincere friend, an insurmountable teacher and a brilliant scientist. During his illness, more than thirty undergraduate, graduate, and post-doc fellows, colleagues, and family friends went to the hospital to accompany him, spending the very difficult times with him together.

Hardly could I find more beautiful words in Spanish to remember him than those I enclosed below, written by the greatest Latin American poet Rubén Darío, when saying farewell to his friend, the poet Antonio Machado. If Rubén Darío would have known Alfredo, another moving poem remembering this great man would have been written and published. From the deepest place of my heart, to my dear friend Alfredo.

Una aventura nacida del entusiasmo, que funciona desde 1985 a fuerza de voluntad, tal es la RPIC (Reunión de Trabajo en Procesamiento de la Información y Control), permitió un hecho que -como sucede muchas veces con emprendimientos semejantes- tuvo una inesperada pero marcada importancia en la comunidad dedicada a esos temas en el país: el acercamiento de quienes tenemos inquietudes en el ámbito académico y de la investigación en dichos campos. Así lo conocí, a través de quien fue un amigo común a ambos, Carlos Muravchik. El juicio inicial ante una presentación, que es inevitable por la espontaneidad con que surge, aunque temerario por las endebles bases sobre las que se forma, se confirmó en todos los años de amistad que se siguieron. Era Alfredo Desages una persona fraternal, de trato cordial, y de claras convicciones respecto del significado de las palabras docencia, investigación, universidad, que se hacían efectivas en su acción tenaz, consecuente con ellas. El resultado de sus esfuerzos durante los años de trabajo en la Universidad Nacional del Sur es admirable: un grupo de investigación, un posgrado, una corriente de trabajo de trascendencia, una cantidad apreciable de discípulos. Alud formidable, su pujanza. Reservada a quienes ponen pasión en lo que hacen.

Nos encontrábamos en forma periódica con su trato campechano, su bondad característica, su charla afable, su gusto por la franca amistad tanto en una sala de conferencias o en un aula, como en largas cenas y cordiales vinos que despiertan conversaciones y fervores compartidos.

Fue de aquellos que entendió que, en la mejor de sus formas, la relación maestro-discípulo es una alegoría del amor desinteresado. Tantos se formaron con él en las aulas. Tantos superaron los límites de ellas y continuaron formándose en la humildad sencilla de su enorme cuarto de trabajo, casi vacío de muebles, lleno de papeles, amistad, mate y cigarrillos.

Un día lo encontramos herido. No compartió ya esas tenidas con amigos, a las que no habría renunciado nunca. Tal vez sabía que la muerte estaba agazapada. Nos engañaba sin engañarse, seguramente, a sí mismo. Escribió Jorge Luis Borges,

Ya puedes ver el trágico escenario

y cada cosa en el lugar debido;

La espada y la ceniza para Dido

Y la moneda para Belisario.

Un sino quizás marcado de antemano me llevó a Bahía Blanca el día en que Alfredo abandonaba el Hospital luego de una cirugía de la que salió por milagro. Acababan de llevarlo a su casa, donde lo ví por última vez. Compartí esa visita y la tristeza con Ricardo Sánchez Peña. Nos encontramos con la feroz saña de los males, con un hilo de voz, con el derrumbe físico, pero, incólumes, sus ideas, su discurso, la investigación, los concursos, los arbitrajes, su obsesión por la Universidad bien entendida. Salimos de esa casa con el espíritu desolado, y cobijaron nuestra pena las viejas mesas -esas que nunca preguntan- del Gambrinus de Bahía, las mismas que habían visto alegrías compartidas con Alfredo en otros, recientes tiempos, que -presentimos- ya no volverían. La evidencia fue lacerante. Y recordamos, inevitablemente, que el cerco final es lo simple, es la casa, la calle, la lenta tarde.

Con pasión indomable, Alfredo, soportando esa disminución física, siguió trabajando, produciendo, asistiendo a sus discípulos, dirigiendo a su grupo. No es la primera vez que soy testigo de ceremonias finales, acongojantes pero aleccionadoras, propias de los verdaderos maestros.

Sin embargo, está escrito. Lo inevitable, la brusca sangre, el abierto foso.

La mañana de un lunes triste nos llegó la infausta noticia de su temprana muerte. Lo sabíamos, aunque teníamos cierta esperanza de que no fuera así lo decretado.

Su herencia es un destacado grupo de investigación en sistemas y control.

Su herencia es el conjunto de sus trabajos, de sus discípulos, de lo que creó en la Universidad Nacional del Sur para que permanezca.

Su herencia es ese clima que fue tan suyo.

Su herencia es este sentimiento de gratitud que todos tenemos florecido.

Siempre miraremos hacia atrás, Alfredo Desages, amigo, y te encontraremos de nuevo en tu cuarto de trabajo, rodeado de papeles, discutiendo algún artículo reciente, ofreciéndonos un mate con una mano, sosteniendo el pucho con la otra, mirando en la ventana la lluvia suave de una tarde de otoño.

Pero desde ahora, sin remedio, nos tocará hacerlo desde lejos, y con profunda nostalgia.

Carlos Enrique D'Attellis