Dear Editor,
I have had several opportunities over the last few months to interact with a very senior public servant; in each instance I walked away in amazement and appreciation. Today, as I publicly laud, Mr. Albert Gordon, CEO of the besieged GPL, Inc. I wonder how different things would be here in Guyana if there were a few more nuggets like him. Just a few more could make a world of difference, be the field political or social or educational, to identify some of the more obvious.
Matters commenced through engagement of CEO Gordon on something of a personal nature; this continued when I ventured to approach him for an official purpose, a tight demanding official purpose. The CEO of this much maligned entity found the time to be there. He answered calls, he returned calls, he opened his door; he listened, he was receptive, he acted authoritatively. This foreigner, this Jamaican born Chief Executive Officer is showing Guyanese leaders what it takes to lead from the front, to spearhead by example. Mr. Gordon has to be immensely busy, yet he spared the space and time (time and again) to exhibit the best in public service orientation, standards adherence, and a determination to move things along, to get things done; even those little things in the grand national scheme of the GPL.
Mr. Gordon and I have shared exchanges on weekends, even on a recent public holiday. I am compelled to ask this: how many local CEOs possess either the patience or interest (perhaps the impulse) to respond to an inconsequential citizen? I wish I could say there are some, perhaps many, but alas…. Mr. Gordon epitomizes the kind of stellar leadership, that exemplary bar which sets the tone and standard and challenge for subordinates all the way down the line to emulate. It is appealing.
Yes, it is a rarity. But it is never so rare when real servanthood is part of one’s personal makeup and vision. As I keep repeating untiringly: we can talk about these things, document them, but the rubber hits the road in the living of them; the character resides in the personifying. Too many honest struggling Guyanese quarrel and cry; too often those quarrels and cry go unanswered as wispy inaudible echoes lost in the freezing winds of indifference that enshroud this land. Too frequently, it takes some of foreign heritage, from a foreign context (like Mr. Statia of the GRA) to manifest that there is another way, alien to be sure and culturally anathematic for certainty, but wise and progressive, as well as uplifting too.
I close by predicting that if Mr. Albert Gordon is so powerfully present in the small things that I placed before him, then he will be successful in shining a bright light across the national stage that waits on the fulfillment of perennial promises and flickering hopes. Thank you, sir; and may God bless you and the team in endeavours on behalf of this society.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall