Andrés Varhola is an Ecuadorian, Canadian and Slovak Forest Engineer, PhD, university instructor, writer and decent karaoke singer. He was born and raised 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level in Quito, Ecuador, and lived for five years in rainy Valdivia, Chile, while he completed his undergraduate degree. He worked in the Ecuadorian forest industry and eventually moved with his wife Alejandra to Vancouver, Canada, where he earned a doctoral degree from the University of British Columbia. He has been teaching after this milestone and dedicated long nights to writing the precursor to the book Excelling in Life as teaching material for a university computer course. He did so because it was exhausting to spend most if his time teaching Excel in non-computer courses, just so students could complete the assignments. His ambition, for now, is to see all high school graduates dominate Microsoft® Excel® and learn to incorporate it into every aspect of their lives.
Andrés' career has been award-winning: he became a Forest Engineer obtaining the highest final GPA in the decades-old history of his faculty, funded all his undergraduate and graduate studies with scholarships, got a Canadian national prize for his PhD thesis, and is the author of several peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has taught a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in Forestry, Statistics and Earth Sciences, ranging from Introductory Biogeography to Advanced Remote Sensing to Business Planning in Forest Management, and many others. His pedagogical focus is backed up by years of experience in the private industry and expertise in very diverse topics. To learn more, visit www.linkedin.com/in/avarhola.