Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al, ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies, has re­ceived an hon­orary doc­tor­ate, the Award of Hon­orary De­gree of Doc­tor of Laws (LLD) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI).

Coos­al, head of one of the lead­ing busi­ness­es in the lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing, con­struc­tion and quar­ry­ing in­dus­try and a phil­an­thropist known for his en­dur­ing as­sis­tance to the less for­tu­nate said: “I wish to sin­cere­ly thank the coun­cil of The UWI for be­stow­ing the Award of Hon­orary De­gree of Doc­tor of Laws on me.

“It is an ho­n­our, and I am hum­bled to have been cho­sen as one of the re­cip­i­ents of this pres­ti­gious ti­tle. “Dur­ing the many years in busi­ness, I have seen many peaks and val­leys, but I am proud of my ac­com­plish­ments and stand proud­ly be­hind the brand “Coos­al’s”. My tire­less ef­forts could not have ma­te­ri­alised with­out the sup­port and loy­al­ty of my fam­i­ly and ded­i­cat­ed em­ploy­ees. My sto­ry of per­se­ver­ance, hard work and sac­ri­fice in the face of ma­jor chal­lenges is the foun­da­tion of where I am to­day.”

Very ear­ly in life, Sie­u­nar­ine was pre­sent­ed with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earnest­ly pur­sue his dreams. An as­pir­ing busi­ness­man—en­er­getic and high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, he works tire­less­ly as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies and still con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the con­struc­tion in­dus­try.

He said his pri­ma­ry mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor, as­sured­ly his great­est joy and ul­ti­mate suc­cess, is the abil­i­ty to em­ploy thou­sands of per­sons who bring a wide ar­ray of skill sets to the Group’s op­er­a­tions. The Coos­al’s brand dates to the ex­haus­tive use of a “pick-axe” as the method to process ag­gre­gate, which even­tu­al­ly evolved to state-of-the-art equip­ment. He proud­ly stat­ed he is sup­port­ed by an im­pres­sive cadre of pro­fes­sion­als who boast ex­ten­sive knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, cham­pi­ons team­work for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and growth.

“Con­tin­u­ous train­ing and mo­ti­va­tion are in­te­gral to the suc­cess of any busi­ness,” he said. The in­dus­try stan­dard for all projects dic­tates a col­lab­o­ra­tion across a myr­i­ad of dis­ci­plines, ideas, opin­ions, and per­son­al­i­ties for a well-round­ed em­ploy­ee and it is un­equiv­o­cal; the most valu­able as­set of any busi­ness is its hu­man cap­i­tal.

He de­clared: “Some­times the re­al­i­ty may im­ply there is no light at the end of the tun­nel, but I urge, you must de­vel­op the mind­set ‘fail­ure is not an op­tion. I lived it and it is a harsh re­minder of how des­o­late the road can be at times.”

Coos­al said it will re­quire an ex­po­nen­tial ef­fort to bol­ster the eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery while we grap­ple with the ef­fects of this pan­dem­ic. As many busi­ness­es strug­gle to stay afloat there will be a great need to dig­i­talise, in­no­vate and max­imise tech­nol­o­gy and re­sources as best as pos­si­ble.

He said: “While my sto­ry may not be unique as there are many suc­cess­ful per­sons whose ear­ly days were less than ide­al and not af­ford­ed most of the ba­sic ameni­ties dur­ing child­hood, I can state proud­ly, I tru­ly en­joyed my child­hood de­spite my hum­ble be­gin­nings and to achieve this ho­n­our of to­day, this ac­co­lade will be eter­nal­ly cher­ished.” From spend­ing his child­hood days in a hum­ble home in the agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage of Todd’s Road, Ca­paro, with his many sib­lings, he even­tu­al­ly trans­formed his fam­i­ly’s small Coos­al’s Quar­ry and Trans­port Com­pa­ny in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised brand.

“So­cial and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions at birth do not de­ter­mine one’s fu­ture,” he said. Hu­mil­i­ty and his gen­uine con­cern for the less for­tu­nate is the cor­ner­stone for his suc­cess and he nev­er for­gets where he came from. One take­away from his jour­ney which pro­pels him, he be­lieves strong­ly and holds to the ca­dence “to nev­er give up.”

Hum­ble be­gin­nings

Coos­al’s dri­ve to suc­ceed was a di­rect re­sult of his very hum­ble be­gin­nings, ear­ly ex­po­sure to un­yield­ing ad­ver­si­ty in his ca­reer and many teach­ing mo­ments. He said: “The cul­mi­na­tion of these, pro­pelled him to be a dy­nam­ic and suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man with my pri­ma­ry fo­cus, not on­ly to as­sist em­ploy­ees by af­ford­ing them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide a bet­ter way of liv­ing for their fam­i­lies but al­so to con­tribute in some mea­sure to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T.”

Coos­al was born in a mod­est home in Todd’s Road, Ca­paro, in Cen­tral Trinidad, the youngest son in a fam­i­ly of 14. His fa­ther died when he was just 18 months old and his moth­er Bas­so Per­sad, was left to sin­gle-hand­ed­ly raise 14 chil­dren. Coos­al’s char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment was mould­ed by his moth­er’s wis­dom, strength and self-sac­ri­fic­ing love. Bas­so and her old­er sons and daugh­ters toiled in the sug­ar cane fields and reared an­i­mals to pro­vide for the large fam­i­ly. The fam­i­ly’s in­come was al­so sup­ple­ment­ed by a par­lour she op­er­at­ed op­po­site the Todd’s Road RC Pri­ma­ry School, the pri­ma­ry school Coos­al at­tend­ed.

Al­though Coos­al could not un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate it at the time, his even­tu­al love for busi­ness was be­ing in­cul­cat­ed in him from the age of sev­en, when re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were as­signed to him in shop­keep­ing.

His el­dest broth­er Ajod­ha Per­sad Coos­al, fond­ly called “Joe” was a fa­ther fig­ure and men­tor to the young Coos­al. Joe man­aged the fam­i­ly’s Coos­al’s Quar­ry and Trans­port Com­pa­ny which was es­tab­lished when Coos­al was 14 years old. Coos­al worked in the busi­ness and when he grad­u­at­ed, Joe of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed him of­fice boy which he fond­ly re­mem­bered. He said his pas­sion and dri­ve nev­er wa­vered since that very first of­fi­cial ap­point­ment and he was pro­mot­ed to po­si­tions in ad­min­is­tra­tion, fi­nance and var­i­ous oth­er ar­eas.

With­out ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion or pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness train­ing, Coos­al even­tu­al­ly rose to the helm of the com­pa­ny, steer­ing it through sheer busi­ness acu­men and hard work to be­come one of the lead­ing busi­ness­es in the lo­cal con­struc­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing and quar­ry­ing in­dus­try. His wife Sin­tra, and sib­lings Pat­ty Ran­dol and Man­ick­ram Per­sad, pro­vid­ed un­yield­ing sup­port over the decades. Coos­al is con­fi­dent the brand will be main­tained for gen­er­a­tions to come, as his three chil­dren show great in­ter­est in fol­low­ing in his foot­steps. The two old­er chil­dren, Tri­cia and Ra­jiv, are ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors in the group and while they fol­low in their fa­ther’s foot­steps they have cre­at­ed their own niche in the busi­ness world. Youngest daugh­ter Shiv­aa, still at col­lege, has al­so ex­pressed her de­sire to join the fam­i­ly firm.

As a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man, Coos­al shares his suc­cess with as many of the less for­tu­nate as he can and nu­mer­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­di­vid­u­als across T&T have ex­pe­ri­enced his warmth and gen­eros­i­ty. Not on­ly did Coos­al’s com­pa­ny as­sist­ed a myr­i­ad of non-prof­it, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, but the Group al­so ex­tend­ed com­ple­men­tary equip­ment and ser­vices in na­tion­al flood re­lief ef­forts for re­me­di­al in­fra­struc­tur­al works in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing na­tion­wide dis­as­ter re­cov­ery process­es. Re­lief ef­forts range from food ham­pers to free med­ical clin­ics.

The strug­gle

The low point of the 1980s deeply af­fect­ed Coos­al and his broth­er Joe, as they suf­fered a ma­jor loss when Coos­al’s Quar­ry and Trans­port went in­to re­ceiver­ship. De­spite many years of fi­nan­cial strug­gle to re­deem the brand and re­store his fam­i­ly’s com­pa­ny and ho­n­our, young Coos­al burned with a de­sire for restora­tion. With ex­treme per­son­al sac­ri­fices, an un­bend­ing re­solve to suc­ceed and great busi­ness acu­men, he suc­cess­ful­ly brought the com­pa­ny out of the ash­es in 1991.

As soon as he peaked that hur­dle and the trans­for­ma­tion be­came clear­er, tragedy struck. Coos­al lament­ed “the events of the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the com­pa­ny at the time over­shad­owed Joe, as he was stripped of his very ex­is­tence and died a very hum­ble and de­ject­ed man.”

This loss dev­as­tat­ed the fam­i­ly and this grief served as an im­pe­tus for Coos­al to re­vive the com­pa­ny from the ground up. He re­brand­ed and re­struc­tured the de­funct com­pa­ny in­to Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. Un­der his as­tute lead­er­ship, the com­pa­ny even­tu­al­ly evolved in­to the Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies.

To­day, Coos­al owns and op­er­ates Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Co Ltd, Coos­al’s Con­crete Ltd, Coos­al’s Blocks (Caribbean) Ltd, Coos­al’s Sand and Grav­el Ltd, Coos­al’s Ltd and In­te­grat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd. The com­pa­ny owns and op­er­ates the largest pri­vate­ly-owned lime­stone quar­ry in Mara­cas, St Joseph and re­ceived six con­sec­u­tive awards for the best de­vel­oped and main­tained hard rock quar­ry. The com­pa­ny al­so op­er­ates an award-win­ning sand and grav­el quar­ry in Tapana, Va­len­cia. The com­pa­ny re­ceived six con­sec­u­tive awards for the best de­vel­oped and main­tained sand and grav­el quar­ry (Tapana).

Coos­al’s man­u­fac­tures an ar­ray of con­struc­tion prod­ucts which it ex­ports to oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

In the area of man­u­fac­tur­ing, Coos­al’s was the first com­pa­ny to in­tro­duce the world-renowned Blend­ed Lake As­phalt. This was used in the du­alling of the Princess Mar­garet High­way, now known as the Uri­ah But­ler High­way. The use of in­no­va­tion and the will­ing­ness to try new tech­nolo­gies and tech­niques af­ford­ed the abil­i­ty to be a fierce com­peti­tor in the lo­cal con­struc­tion in­dus­try with the suc­cess­ful award of key na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture projects. He fur­ther stat­ed: “Part of the promise is to give self­less­ly—nev­er ex­pect any­thing in re­turn.”