St Vincent Grammar School

Life is but a continuum of opportunities and challenges; it is our ability to turn the challenges into opportunities that will determine the degree of success/accomplishment of each individual. If one is to use this simple premise in one’s approach to life and living, then life may not turn out to be the complicated process that we sometimes make it.

The opportunity to have followed the CSEC Curriculum and sat the inaugural examinations in 1979 provided me with the platform of choice and the wisdom of analysis to choose this simple premise to accomplish and to be success oriented.

World of Work

This platform allowed me to enter the field of Banking, a sojourn which occupied my time and energies from 4 June, 1980 to 31 March, 2000 with the National Commercial Bank (SVG) Limited. During that period, I was able to progress through the ranks from a Teller to a Loan Officer, to Branch Manager for the Grenadines (Bequia, Union Island and Canouan) and finally to Manager of the Halifax Street Branch, Kingstown.

This sojourn then allowed me to make the transfer from a Banking career to a Management position in the insurance field. This was effected on 17 April, 2000 when I joined the team at the St. Hill Insurance Company Limited, which I have managed from that time to present (March 2009), currently holding the position of Managing Director.

Training

Both attachments allowed me the opportunity for training in the particular fields (Banking and Insurance) and in the important area of Management. These included local and regional training programmes and certification seminars. This extended to the Diploma Programme in Management at the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) in Barbados, the Association of Insurance Institute of the Caribbean (AIIC) Programme in Principles of Insurance and Legal Aspects of Insurance and exposure to the workings of the Re-insurance Markets in London (particularly Lloyds).

Service to Humanity

I was called to do community and humanitarian work even prior to leaving school; this in preference to advancing my obvious outstanding skill in track and field, football and cricket. My Curriculum Vitae in this field includes: President of the Arnos Vale Educational Sports and Cultural Organisation (AVESCO), Vice President of both the SVG Athletics Association and SVG Football Federation, Chairman of the West St. George Area Council, Chairman of the National Sports Council, Member of various other national boards and President of the Rotary Club of Bequia as well as Rotary Club of St Vincent South. I am also the sitting President of the Insurance Association of St Vincent and the Grenadines (2nd year).

Class of ‘79

Combined, these experiences in the world of work and in service have allowed me to be a rounded individual with a positive attitude and approach to all endeavours and a deep will to achieve and advance whatever the cause.

Being a part of the ‘Class of ’79’ would, no doubt, have prepared me for this life of service.

THANKS CSEC/CXC.