In the two decades I’ve known Rayneau Gajadhar, he’s never ceased to amaze everyone else.
Whether by what he says or does, he evokes responses that range from bewilderment to surprise, according to how he or she felt about him before their first encounter.
An amazing achiever, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the Rayneau Gadjadhar (R.G.) Group of Companies grew his enterprise from selling ice cream at school-age and scavenging old backhoes to create new ones for his first major government project.
His company Concrete and Industrial Equipment (CIE) Ltd. launched a revolution in Saint Lucia’s construction industry that still draws everything from praise to criticism to condemnation – again depending on who’s talking.
He’s led his company at home and abroad in ways others simply admire and/or respect, taking his home-made wisdom and techniques to the rest of the Caribbean — from constructing a hospital in Dominica to building a new airport in Montserrat, to engagement in major earth-moving activities in neighbouring Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
CIE is also the regional agent for South Korea’s Hyundai heavy-duty equipment manufacturers, with outlets in Saint Lucia and Guyana.
Never one to back-down from a challenge, but to always instead seek and find the opportunities embedded, Rayneau has moved from laying pipelines along highways to building everything from super-highways to hotels and hospitals.
His reputation as a deliverer precedes him everywhere — and with the most equipment and access to the most self-generated resources over the shortest periods, even his critics will engage ‘Ray’ to ensure they get every bang for each buck spent.
Rayneau’s monuments to success range from his reputation to delivering the most and best quickest, his construction prowess leaving such footprints in local sands as the Royalton Hotel at Cap Estate, the glass-cased headquarters of the Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP) at Vigie and the record-breaking completion of the St. Jude Hospital – 16 years after it burned down on September 9, 2009.
Rayneau’s self-financing approach has allowed CIE and the RG Group to procure, secure and deliver needed supplies with maximum speed, his international group of engineers providing permanent professional leadership to ensure highest quality standards.
This amazing son of the forested and mountainous Barre de L’Isle terrain separating Castries from Dennery has survived every mishap, seemingly using each to propel extension of his boundless horizons for self-sufficiency through ownership of both resources and means of production.
Having imported the most and best Chinese construction equipment and machinery into Saint Lucia, Ray also always insists his drivers ensure observance of best traffic standards, including that sand and dusty materials are always covered.
Ray’s maverick moves can be as mysterious as confusing, enough to leave staff as puzzled and different in their reactions to their Boss as everyone else.
Never one to fully delegate total responsibilities for anything he owns to anyone in his pay, he’ll personally confront any supposedly-difficult or disagreeable member of staff who may openly have broken company rules or engaged in unpardonable activity (like theft or sleeping on the job) and ultimately ask: “What do you suggest I should do to you right now?”
Ever-present at all his company’s work sites, this owner of all he surveys can also use every piece of equipment available across all his properties.
He habitually learns to handle every piece of equipment or machinery he buys — from the company’s long-lasting Japanese and Korean 20th Century equipment to today’s electric and air-conditioned cranes and bulldozers and computerized surveying and engineering tools.
Rayneau also a licensed pilot (after purchasing a helicopter at an overseas air show) and now owns the largest powered marine barge in the Eastern Caribbean, capable of delivering building materials and supplies to any and all of his projects any and everywhere in the Caribbean – and beyond – by air or sea.
Ray has also invested in major agricultural projects in Saint Vincent & The Grenadine, exporting the multi-island state’s products to other Caribbean destinations – and beyond.
Loud in his statements of fact and quiet about his own achievements, Gadjadhar has built a solid reputation as a serious contractor, who governments can always depend upon to deliver – before, after and between elections.
A UWP administration engaged him to build nine roads in the island’s north in one week — ahead of a past election – and he delivered, even though the party lost the poll a few days after the new roads were opened.
Another UWP administration sealed his fate when a leader and prime minister was later exposed as having dictated to his then infrastructure minister that Rayneau would and should never be contracted under his watch – even while building a government-owned hospital in Dominica.
But Ray wasn’t only able to continue surviving and growing his company, he’d also live to personally invite that same politician, now in opposition, to see (with his own two eyes) just how much of a massive government project his company’s about to deliver – and ahead of yet another General Elections.
Rayneau’s story is a continuing work in progress and every year he does something to top my list of local builders and construction professionals, this time the hospital three successive administrations failed to move from a sorry sight while allowing the China-built George Odlum Stadium to limp along as a crippled excuse for a hospital.
Now with four decades of business wisdom and three scores under his age belt, the Rayneau I know has just started getting started for ensuring his and his company and family’s tomorrows continue to grow, despite climate changes in politics or the island’s infrastructural development drives and emphases resulting from repeated regime change.
So, those already starting to talk and think about Rayneau’s ‘retirement’ had better start thinking again, as the island’s most-successful local entrepreneur never has any end or horizon in sight but continuing to build – and grow – for the win-win benefit of all.
Happy 60, Ray!