The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is mourn­ing the loss of two stal­warts who died yes­ter­day.

The T&T power­boat fra­ter­ni­ty and Truck­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T lost long­stand­ing mem­ber Robert Charles “Peb­bles” Tardieu.

Tardieu, 69, of the Monos Is­land Tardieu clan, died at hos­pi­tal af­ter in­juries sus­tained fol­low­ing a fall a month ago.

Tardieu, one of three broth­ers and three sis­ters, had been a mem­ber of the power­boat fra­ter­ni­ty for most of his life and was well known in rac­ing cir­cles for al­most 50 years as nav­i­ga­tor among the three-man crew of the White Heat Bowen Ma­rine power­boat, along with his cousins Vic­tor and Richard. The boat won ti­tles in its cat­e­go­ry in sev­er­al Great Race events over the years.

A for­mer mem­ber of North­erns Rug­by Club, Tardieu had al­so been a for­mer T&T Truck­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent. Over the years, he was in­stru­men­tal in work­ing on truck­ers’ be­half to try to sort out is­sues mem­bers had in ply­ing be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Tardieu was in the news last De­cem­ber when his el­der broth­er, Der­rick, was kid­napped. Der­rick had been heard on an SOS call cry­ing to Robert for help.

Robert was the hus­band of Su­san Ra­goonath and fa­ther of Derek John­son-Tardieu, Fran­cis­co “Tur­ok” Delph, Tasha Tardieu, Krys­tal Ra­goonath and grand­fa­ther of Krys­t­ian Ra­goonath.

His fu­ner­al is card­ed for Thurs­day at the St Mary’s RC Church, St James, from 9 am, with cre­ma­tion at Clarke and Bat­too at 11.30 am.

Mean­while, Wayne Yip Choy, the man of­ten cred­it­ed with the turn­around of An­gos­tu­ra when he was its chief ex­ec­u­tive, al­so died yes­ter­day in an in­ci­dent po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Yip Choy, 70, was found dead in the carpark at Har­bour View Apart­ments in West­moor­ings. He was found by the man­ag­er of the prop­er­ty, who heard two gun­shots and went to in­ves­ti­gate. He was found with his li­censed firearm in his hand.

Yip Choy was a past pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA). He be­gan his ca­reer in 1976 as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of a com­pa­ny called Sweet­heart Cakes Ltd., which was sub­se­quent­ly re­named Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd. He spent a to­tal of 28 years at that com­pa­ny.

Yip Choy was a for­mer of Carib Brew­ery and An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed and served on the board of Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed (TCL).

Ten years ago, Yip Choy was award­ed a $28 mil­lion land­mark judg­ment against his for­mer em­ploy­er, An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (AHL), af­ter he was fired.

Yip Choy’s tenure was piv­otal in the com­pa­ny’s turn­around, fol­low­ing its $1.2 bil­lion debt af­ter the col­lapse of CL Fi­nan­cial Lim­it­ed in Jan­u­ary 2009, An­gos­tu­ra’s in­abil­i­ty to pro­duce fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2009 and sub­se­quent delist­ing from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change.

In 2010, the com­pa­ny’s ex­pe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing in­creased sales by 18 per cent. An­gos­tu­ra record­ed sales of $394.6 mil­lion for the first six months of this year—an in­crease of 11.6 per­cent com­pared with Jan­u­ary to June 2010. For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to Sep­tem­ber 2010, the com­pa­ny net­ted a prof­it of $91.6 mil­lion.