Most will not know but Patrick is who brought me into the insurance industry. I was going through an interview process at XL with some 20 candidates and I reached out to Patrick for advice. He provided me with information for research purposes and when I called him a few days with a multitude of questions on the information he gave me his respondents, after answering those questions was, “If you are not successful in landing the position at XL I will do all I can to ensure you have an opportunity in this industry. I have given information to many people and you are the first to evidence you have read it and tried to digest it. You have shown your willingness and desire to learn.”

The interview process was whittle down to two of us and ultimately I did not get the job, when I advised Patrick, who had very much become a mentor to me he reiterate his desire to see me in the industry. A fe months later he called me with a job offer at Marsh to work under him, I accepted without a second thought.

I will never forget what Patrick did for me and I will forever be grateful to him for taking me under his wing and teaching me the industry. Patrick has received many accolades and I can tell you he deserves every single one of them and I can tell you that I am not the only one he helped to guide.

I can never repay Patrick for what he can do for me.

Forget about all those political comments Pat, just keep doing what you are doing.

You have never forgotten where you came from Bro ! Stay Black Man

Peace!

I say this to say, there is a segment that invariably will hate whoever the PLP puts as the leader.

For those of you that wish Mr Tannock would run for office must know that if he chose to run he would immediately be villified by a certain demographic and everything positive written about him would be a distant memory.

Enough with the OBA vs. PLP. Enough with the blame game. Enough with playing the race card. etc. Politics is getting in the way of real progress in this country. We, as the people of this country, need to tell our politicians from both sides of the aisle that we’re done with their bickering and nothing short of a solution-oriented dialogue will be tolerated.

From a political perspective, how many would support him if he ran as a candidate for the PLP? OBA? UBP? Independent? Based on past roll outs, his character would be assassinated no matter which party he chose to run for. That is precisely the problem for successful people in choosing to run for political office. They are immediately demonised. thinks of how many Bermudians would run for office if they were free to choose which party to run for?

On another note, success in business is not necessarily a precursor for success in the political realm. The most basic reason is the human factor. In business, humans are mere PARTS of the puzzle. In politics, people ARE the puzzle. Therefore in the current economic climate the business solution is redundancies and firing. The political solution is to increase social programs and support employees even when it is more economical to fire them.

Mr. Tannock also speaks about being a master craftsman and we have to give credit to some of our current master politicains. They are doing an excellent job in weathering the criticism of all and sundry during a very difficult Bermuda and International economic crisis.

In summary, there is a long list of successful Bermudians and Non Bermudians in all sectors of Bermuda’s society. I trust that in the near future we will realise that Bermuda is too important to be treated as a political football – as is oft said, we will either sink or swim together – therefore we require all hands on deck at this critical juncture of our economic development.

“These are unprecedented times, and Bermuda is feeling the impact of the worst global recession in living memory. But as tough as it is today, I am absolutely confident that we will get through this! I believe in the resiliency of Bermuda and I believe in our collective ability – both Bermudians and non Bermudians – to rise to the challenge.”

…..we can start building this country economy again…

Mr. Tannock is exactly the type of person we need playing a role in the running of the country… the difference in the state of our nation would be startling!

And to answer Kathy – the best politician you could find would be the reluctant one.

You set the bar at just the right height… reachable but only with that all-important s-t-r-e-t-c-h.