David Robert Lynch King, AA, managing director of King Advertising Limited, died on 25 March, aged 63.
The son of Robert Lynch King, at one time superintendent of canvassers of the Demerara Mutual Life Assurance Society and chief salesman of F J Bankart & Co, of Water Street, and grandson of Lynch King, a sugar planter, David Robert Lynch King was bred for business from birth.
After leaving Queen’s College in 1961, he was swept away in the flood of emigrants to Canada for two years where he worked at various commercial jobs in Toronto, Brandon and Calgary before deciding to resettle at home.
He served from 1975 as divisional manager of Bandag Tyre Retreading, marketing manager, general manager and managing director of Associated Industries Ltd (AINLIM) and, finally, as managing director of Transport Services Ltd − all subsidiaries of the Trinidadian Neal & Massy Group of Companies.
The year that he joined the conglomerate, AINLIM made its mark on motoring history in this country with the launch of the redoubtable Tapir wagon. Although King was not its inventor, the company saw the Tapir through its six years of production during which 900 vehicles rolled off the assembly line. Far from being consigned to the scrap yard of history as obsolete museum pieces, a few hardy Tapirs have defied modernity, if not beauty, and continue to ply the Corentyne highway to this day.
David King left Neal & Massy in 1992 after seventeen years and, with two Trinidadian partners, he founded King, Aleong & Agostini Advertising Ltd, becoming chairman and managing director. Despite entering a very competitive field, King quickly carved out a share of the market and moved his new company to the front rank of advertising agencies. His Trinidad-based partners went out of business but he survived and, from 15 May 1998, the company was renamed King Advertising Ltd with David King remaining as managing director.’
By this time, King had become a prominent and popular personality in the business community. He was elected vice-chairman (1984-92), and chairman (1992-97), of the Consultative Association of Guyanese Industry Ltd; chairman of the Private Sector Commission; president of the Caribbean Employers Association (1994-95), and selected as a member of the Guyana Trade Facilitation Board. More recently, he served as a member of the PSC’s executive management committee and the Guyana-Brazil Joint Commission, working on the joint administrative committees for the Guyana-Brazil Partial Scope Trade Agreement and the Road Transport Agreement.
For his unfeigned commitment to commercial expansion and his service to the business community, he received the national award of the Golden Arrow of Achievement on 26 May 1997.
Undaunted by delays and difficulties, he was optimistic about the prospects and potential of enhancing commerce with Brazil, particularly Roraima State, and was anxious to see the completion of the highway and the construction of the Takutu River bridge linking Guyana and Brazil. He was also a director of Maikan Tourismo of Boa Vista, a private company managed by his wife and business partner Leila King, who lives and works in Brazil. In fact, he made the harrowing overland trip on the rough roadway as often as twice a month to see her and it was during one such visit for the Easter holidays that he died in Boa Vista.
A well-liked and convivial clubman, he was a former chairman of the Georgetown Club, member of the Georgetown Cricket Club and past president of the Rotary Club of Georgetown. He encountered many of his future clients on the squash courts and will be remembered for his unaffected affability and geniality. Away from this urban social circle, King sought his leisure in the great outdoors. Armed with a shotgun, fishing rods and camera, weekends took him across the savannahs and along many rivers from the Abary to the Rupununi, duck shooting, fishing and photographing the hinterland’s rich flora and fauna.
He had a lifelong love of football, acquired while at Queen’s College where he was considered as the team’s “sound and capable goalkeeper” and one of the safest pairs of hands in the game. Hopes of selection to the national side evaporated but his infatuation with the game remained in adult life when he left the field to become an ardent supporter of Manchester United FC.
David King was married first to Elizabeth née Perreira with whom he had a son and, later, to Leila née Mahadeo, who survives him.
