Leonardo Salvador Sarao Sr. (April 13, 1921 – July 31, 2001) was the founder and owner of the

Sarao Motors Sarao Motors, Inc. is a Filipino automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Brgy. Pulang Lupa in the city of Las Piñas in Metro Manila, Philippines. The company designs, engineers, manufactures and distributes the jeepney, the most popu ...

, a company known for designing, manufacturing and selling the

jeepney Jeepneys (), sometimes called jeeps (), are minibus-like public utility vehicles, serving as the most popular means of public transportation in the Philippines. They are known for their crowded seating and kitsch decorations, which have become ...

, the most popular mode of transportation in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. He is not the first person to alter the surplus

jeeps Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

left behind by the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

,Blueberry (2007-09-23
"Sarao Jeepney"
Public Utility Vehicles. Retrieved on 2013-04-25. but he saw them as a business opportunity for

mass transportation Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

. He redesigned the surplus jeeps to increase its functionality by extending the body to accommodate at least twice the number of passengers and by putting some railings at the back and top for extra passengers to cling to, and for cargoes."Remarkable Philippine Jeepneys"
Center for Philippine Studies,

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa (University of Hawaii—Mānoa, UH Mānoa, Hawai'i, or simply UH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Manoa, Mānoa, a neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii. It ...

. Retrieved on 2013-04-26. He revolutionized a burgeoning industry and changed the life of generations of Filipinos.Santos, Michelle D
"Great Leaders in Our Midst"
The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Award. Retrieved on 2013-04-26. Leonardo Sarao was awarded

The Outstanding Filipino Award The Outstanding Filipino or TOFIL Award is the honor given by the Junior Chamber International, Junior Chamber International (JCI) Philippines to Filipino people, Filipino men and women, 41 years of age and over, whose exemplary achievements ar ...

(TOFIL) in 1997 for

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. He started Sarao Motors from a borrowed

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

700. Though he only attained

Grade 6 Sixth grade (or grade six in some regions) is the sixth year of schooling. Students are typically 11–12 years old, depending on when their birthday occurs. Different terms and numbers are used in other parts of the world. It is commonly the firs ...

level of education because of

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

, he was able to make the company grow into a multimillion

peso The peso is the monetary unit of several countries in the Americas, and the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries the peso uses the Dollar sign, same sign, "$", as many currencies na ...

conglomerate. "TOFIL Awardee - Leonardo S. Sarao"
The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Award. Retrieved on 2013-04-26.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarao, Leonardo S. 20th-century Filipino businesspeople 1921 births 2001 deaths People from Imus People from Las Piñas Businesspeople from Metro Manila Filipino company founders