José “Joe” Inguanzo was born and raised on the island of Cuba, arriving in the U.S. on July 4, 1962. After high school, Joe took his aptitude for numbers to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he enrolled as an engineering undergraduate in the fall of 1964. He was soon drawn to the new field of computing and quickly gained enough expertise to work on the mainframe installation in Nebraska Hall. Intrigued by statistical analyses of graduate students’ survey data, he sharpened his skills and chose to focus on statistical applications of computing while earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. After earning his Ph.D., he co-founded Professional Research Consultants, Inc., with his wife, Joyce, also a university graduate. Today PRC is the industry’s largest, privately held, minority-owned, healthcare- exclusive custom market research consultancy. It is driven by Joe’s vision of helping hospitals and healthcare systems use custom research surveys and high-level mathematical analyses to become excellent from the perspectives of patients, employees and physicians. PRC now employs nearly 1,000 individuals.
Dr. Joe Inguanzo came to Nebraska as one of the early refugees from Fidel Castro’s Cuba and soon registered at the University of Nebraska to pursue his degree in Electrical Engineering. He was an outstanding undergraduate and graduate student and while working for the university, he worked on and received his PhD in Electrical Engineering.
After leaving the university he and his wife founded Professional Research Consultants. Under his 33 years of leadership it has grown into a firm working in the health systems area and employing over 400 Nebraskans.