Draft:Luis Camara Manoel

• Comment: I am still figuring out whether this draft meets WP:DIPLOMAT. The amount of unsourced contents is greatly alarming, and should be removed per WP:BLP. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 03:28, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

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Luis Eduardo Vitorino da Camara Manoel (born July 21, 1971) is the first Honorary Consul of Portugal to the State of Utah. He was appointed by João Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon the recommendation of Francisco Duarte Lopes, the Ambassador of Portugal in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 2023.

Early Life

Camara Manoel was born in Évora, Portugal, to Eduardo Alfredo Dias Camara Manoel, an agricultural engineer, and Maria Jose de Almeida Vitorino, a school teacher. The third of four sons, Luis grew up in the coastal city of Setúbal, Portugal. He spent his childhood, as a boy scout, exploring the rugged mountains of the Arrábida National Park, and its expansive beaches, a period that fostered a deep connection with the environment and a profound love for the ocean. He served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern Portugal, from 1991 to 1993.

Family

Luis met the former Angela Marie Fawson, from Grantsville, Utah, while serving a Church mission in Portugal, in the city of Coimbra. They met again after their mission, in Salt Lake City, where they were married in 1993, in the Salt Lake Temple. Luis and Angela are the parents of four children.

Education

Luis earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brigham Young University (BYU), in Provo, Utah, in 1999, and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, in Seattle, Washington, in 2007.

Luis is fluent in Portuguese, French, English and Spanish.

Career

Technology

Upon graduating from BYU, Luis co-founded KeyScouter.com, a social networking company for boy scouting families. In 2000, he accepted a position with Novell, a Provo-based technology firm, where he worked for five years as Senior Program Manager. In 2005 he was recruited by Microsoft, and moved to Washington state, where he worked for ten years. At Microsoft, Luis was granted two technology patents related to the dynamic allocation and assignment of virtual environments within enterprise data centers, a technology that is amply used by cloud services providers. During this period, Luis authored a number of technical articles. In the fintech industry, Luis served on the board of advisors of DivvyPay, a financial technology company that was later sold to Bill.com.

International Development and Relief Efforts

Throughout his career, Luis remained actively involved in international development and relief efforts. From 2014 through 2019, Luis served as Chairman of the Board at Iduka, USA, a crowdfunding platform to support post-secondary education in developing nations. In 2015, Camara Manoel returned to Utah, when he began working for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over a period of ten years, Luis worked as a Director of Business Services and Strategic Initiatives, and a Senior manager in Humanitarian Services. Luis’ teams focused on the development of local, sustainable programs, designed to alleviate some of the most common causes of human suffering in developing nations, namely, livelihoods, food security, clean water, maternal health and child nutrition, and literacy and education. In support of these efforts, Luis has traveled extensively across Europe, Africa, Central and Latin America, Asia, Southeast Asia, and pacific regions.

Diplomacy

In Utah, Camara Manoel devoted his attention to citizen diplomacy, promoting Portugal’s food, culture and language with local schools, churches and community organizations. In 2023, in partnership with the Portuguese General Consulate in San Francisco, he hosted Portugal’s first consular visit to the state, bringing consular services much closer to the Portuguese diaspora residing in Utah. On July 7, 2023, Luis was appointed Portugal’s first Honorary Consul to Utah, by João Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon the recommendation of Francisco Duarte Lopes, the Ambassador of Portugal in Washington, D.C. As Honorary Consul, Luis’ main role is to foster diplomatic relations, promote trade, and strengthen cultural ties between Portugal and the state of Utah.

In 2023, RDP International, Portugal's main public radio station, interviewed Luis Camara Manoel, to discuss the establishment of Portugal's first Honorary Consulate in Utah. Luis spoke of the Portuguese community in the state, and outlined some of his vision and plans to develop a sense of community among the Luso community.

In January 2025, Luis organized and hosted a four-day diplomatic mission to the state of Utah by Portuguese Ambassador, Francisco Duarte Lopes and Portuguese Consul General, Filipe Ramalheira. The mission focused on the establishment of Portugal's first Honorary Consulate in Utah, and the fostering of educational and economic ties between the Portuguese Republic and the state of Utah. It included meetings with Utah Lieutenant Governor, Deidre Henderson, Utah State Senate leadership, the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a lecture by Ambassador Lopes at Brigham Young University.

In February 2025 Luis was interviewed by a Portuguese national radio station, RDP Internacional, where he profiled the Portuguese community in the state of Utah. The same news agency published a subsequent interview with Luis, highlighting Portugal's growing population in the state. He also granted an interview to "Hora dos Portugueses" an RTP1 television program. RTP1 is Portugal's main public television station, where he spoke of the establishment of Portugal's first honorary consulate in Utah.

In February 2025, Luis was elected to as the Vice-President of the Utah Consular Corps.

Personal Interests

Luis enjoys spending time in the ocean. He was a long distance open-water swimmer, and is a certified open water scuba diver.

References

Category:Diplomacy Category:Portugal Category:Utah Category:Biography (genre) Category:Humanitarian aid organizations