By Aubrey Armstrong
The late Paterson “Pat” Thompson’s life (1931 – 2020) spanned three (3) eras of the life of the Caribbean, so I have titled this tribute a “Life in three Acts”. Pat’s formative years were Act One: He was born in then British Guiana in the early 1930s and came of age in the 50s and 60s as the colonial period was winding down. In Act Two, a period spanning from the mid-60s to the early 90s, Pat was able to transition from a manager in the private sector to a leader in the public sector, serving in key nationalised Guyanese industries – bauxite, rum, shipping – and representing a newly independent Guyana with distinction as a head of Diplomatic Mission. In Act Three of his career and public life, the late 90s and early 21st century, Pat became a leader in the regional private sector as the head of a revitalized Apex private sector organization called the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC). Pat moved to Barbados to lead CAIC and lived there for over 30 years, into retirement and his passing.
In his spare time, he was a sports enthusiast who followed boxing, football and his beloved West Indies cricket. He also indulged a passion for political and broader public affairs through commentary, analysis and writing. I remember an evening public lecture in Barbados at the Queens Park steel shed. Pat regaled the audience in his discourse on Caribbean politics by suggesting that if he had to write a play about Caribbean politics it would be a play in (3) three acts. In Act One, the lights would go down, curtains would part and a politician on a platform would be seen exhorting the audience to “vote for me and I will expel the colonialist and usher in independence and great days ahead”. Loud cheers would erupt, the lights will then come on. In Act Two, the politician would be heard saying “vote for me and I will develop the country, give you improved health care, education and roads and things that the colonialists never delivered”. There would be loud cheers. Of course after 20-30 years these things would not have been delivered and several issues of governance would have emerged to frustrate the people. Then in Act Three, where new politicians can be seen on the hustings exhorting the crowd they would say “vote for me and I will bring back the colonialists”. There would be loud cheers. Full Circle.
When I first met Pat he was chairman of the Bauxite Industry Development Company (BIDCO), the reorganised State bauxite company and I was a youngster just returning to head one of the State enterprises in Guyana. In the course of my sojourn and in the flush of youth and inexperience, I got into a public spat with two of the powerful chairmen, also in the public sector, and I was giving as good as I got. As matters heated up and the newspapers reveled in this public quarrel, I got a call inviting me to have lunch with another powerful Chairman – Pat Thompson. At our meeting to my surprise, there was no attempt to lecture me, we merely got to know each other, our common interests in cricket, boxing, public and political affairs. At the end of the lunch as we stood to say goodbye Pat bowled the first of many mentoring balls – he said “ Dr. Armstrong, I would have thought that if you were picking a fight with two of the most powerful men in Guyana, that you would at least have chosen to fight them one at a time.” I looked at him and saw the mischievous twinkle in his eyes and we roared with laughter. I recognized this instantly as a worthy piece of advice, delivered with grace, charm and subtlety that from that day some forty years ago, became hallmarks of our long and enduring friendship.
At a personal level, I experienced Pat Thomson as a well-balanced innovative leader whose hand-shake was all you needed for a contract. He was open and straightforward with his critique or criticism and it was always moderated, objective and never personalised or dismissive. Pat had the uncanny ability to speak truth to power in his low key, direct but respectful manner. He neither harboured grudges nor prejudices. Once he had expressed his thoughts, he let the chips fall where they may. Pat had a wicked, but subtle sense of humour.
At various times, Pat also operated from three (3) different domiciles of British Guiana (later Guyana), the US, and Barbados and his career spanned three (3) different sectors: private, public and civil society and at three (3) different levels: national, regional and international.
He was born in colonial British Guiana and attended Saint Stanislaus College. He was from a conservative Roman Catholic background and would have been considered privileged. The first part of his career in both the private and public sectors reflected a British Guiana transitioning into an independent Guyana. He began as a management trainee or “Bookers cadet” in Booker’s enterprises, then the most pervasive and powerful colonial company in the region, whose transcendent power and influence mirrored that of the British East India Company in India’s colonial past. This was a highly coveted position for a “local” to be drafted into “Bookers” as a management cadet.
The Cadetship scheme was revolutionary step that Bookers and later, other colonial organisations, such as Barclays Bank DCO would take. The colonial framework operated on authoritarian lines of “talking down” to the colonized. Management models and influences within this framework included the colonial bureaucracy, church, police, paramilitary, military, plantation and colonial companies. This new mechanism introduced trainees from among the colonised to management and leadership training, within the colonial companies and polity.
It was visionary and far reaching as most of the people who passed through these programmes (later expanded to include the colonial bureaucracies, police etc) did themselves proud in leading and guiding the various organizations through the necessary transformations of their organisations into the newly emerging Guyana. British Guiana moved into independence in 1966 and as the lights of one era dimmed the curtains opened for the new Post-independence era and Act Two of Pat’s public life.
Pat, now in his 30s, had distinguished himself in the private sector by helping Bookers to make the major transformations for excelling in a post-colonial world. He was then tapped for leadership positions in the public sector; firstly as Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, (1969-1970), and secondly, on his recall, as Chairman of the newly Nationalised bauxite company GUYBAU. Pat demonstrated innovative leadership as Chairman of GUYBAU. He negotiated a joint venture with a Norwegian shipping line in which Guyana held majority shares and the Chairmanship position.
This meant bauxite could be shipped in Guyanese joint venture vessels and Guyana now had greater control of the critical strategic function of controlling supply lines to the Market instead of only paying money to foreign companies to ship the bauxite. Pat continued to sit on the councils of the private and business sectors and on the boards of several companies, most importantly the rum companies, which were to become very important in the future of sugar and rum.
In his private life, Citizen Thompson’s other activities, embraced political and public affairs analysis and commentary on Radio and in the Newspapers. This led him to become a member of a discussion and political action group called “Compass,” where he joined me and a cross section of Guyanese to push back against the growing Authoritarian impulses emerging in Guyana. ”Compass” was a group comprised of public and private sector managers, the Anglican and Catholic Bishops, University lecturers and other intellectuals, union leaders etc.. It was a cross-sectional, multi-racial, multi-ideological group that came together to discuss the political and public issues of the day.
We issued a statement saying that we would speak truth to power and, while not a political party, nevertheless reserved the constitutional right to speak on all matters related to the society, that affected the people of Guyana. Needless to say, at a time when the Caribbean political cauldron was boiling (Gairy had been overthrown in Grenada) and Guyana was in the throes of street protests led by the WPA, we in COMPASS did not have an easy road.
The Authorities saw us as an existential threat and the Government ended up, as some of the newspaper headlines of the day put it, “Waging a war on its enemies,” COMPASS being among them. Pat Thompson, Pat Carmichael, Colin Cholmondeley and I, among others, were forced to leave the public and private sector. Under major strain, many of us migrated and took positions with regional and global organisations.
The curtain on the Third Act of Pat’s life had parted in the waning years of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st century. Pat became the executive director of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, a regional Federation of National Private Sector associations and individual companies. Pat recruited a team of young, highly educated Professionals, relocated the organization to Barbados, and reinvented and reinvigorated the CAIC. As a departure from the traditional profits-only orientation, the private sector played a more engaged, proactive, professional and developmental role, committing to research and policy analysis, advocacy, training and overall general development. He implemented the Vision of some of the giants of the Caribbean private sector, like Sir John Stanley Goddard, of Barbados, Sydney Knox and Ken Gordon, of Trinidad and Tobago, and Yesu Persaud of Guyana, to name a few who sat on CAIC’s Board. Together, they made CAIC relevant and valued at the Regional decision-making roundtables and fora. The new CAIC became a key player in regional development as it got observer status to the Heads of Government Caucuses and other Caucuses of CARICOM. Pat retired from CAIC and briefly went back to Guyana as a consultant to a major private sector and financial management project before retiring from the public stage in Barbados.
I would like to leave you in his public domain before I enter his family domain with an incident that took place when Pat was the president of the Guyana Association of Barbados Incorporated (GABI). Pat was the first president and had served for 2 or 3 terms. The annual general meeting and elections were about to take place. The two people nominated were yours truly and a young Indo-Guyanese lawyer. The membership was at that time about 60% Afro-Guyanese and it was a foregone conclusion that I would win. Pat consulted with me and said “Aubrey it is clear that you would win this election but I want to suggest something to you that I think is in the interest of balance of fairness and affects the next generation; you should stand down but still sit on the committee”. Without second thought, this was done and the young man was elected President. There may be a lesson in that experience for Guyana.
Let me finally join his family, his wife, Evadne, who stood side by side with him these many years and into his passing, his daughters Wendy and Leslyn, and his son Keith, several grandchildren, the extended family and his several colleagues and friends in Guyana, Barbados, the Caribbean and beyond, to give thanks for the life of Patterson “Pat” Thompson. The invisible enemy of COVID-19 that we all face stopped many relatives and friends from coming to salute him one last time in person, perhaps heralding a new normal. I would like to close this tribute by paraphrasing and invoking one of Pat’s favourite pieces of scripture, Psalm 91, the psalm of protection: “He who dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty.” May HE protect us all, his family, his country Guyana, his adopted country Barbados, the region, institutions like PAHO,WHO, and the UN, which are on the frontline of this battle, and in fact the entire world. May HE protect us all from “the arrows that cometh by Day and the iniquity that cometh at nightfall”.
Walk good my brother. You have fought the good fight. You have kept the faith. May you Rest in Peace.
