There is every likelihood that Beverly Tapp, a 59-year-old Guyanese woman with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and a master’s degree in Highway Engineering from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, along with her daughter, Josephine, an attorney-at-law and tax advisor, are the owners of the only women-owned road engineering firm in Guyana.
It didn’t begin that way. Back in July 1993, B&J Civil Works had been established at 135-137 ‘A’ Triumph, East Coast Demerara, and was being run by Josephine and her German-born husband, Jochen, a mechanical engineer. They had met when Jochen had come to Guyana as an independent contractor, providing transportation services for a company executing a contract here. At the time, Beverley was employed as an engineer with Hinterland Roads Construction Company Ltd (HRCCL).
Eventual marriage meant that they became partners in more ways than one. She quit her job to take responsibility for ‘the engineering side’ of the business. Fourteen years later, in 2007, Beverley was forced into the dual roles of General Manager and Engineer, Jochen having succumbed to a sudden heart attack.
Having long earned the full support of the rest of the company Beverly quickly ‘acclimatized’ to the responsibilities that attended her new management role. Nor did the fact that she was managing a company in a male-dominated sector deter her in the least, though she concedes that the earliest period was not without its challenges.
Seemingly very much on top of her game these days, Beverley told the Stabroek Business when we met with her last week that setting aside its road construction capabilities, B&J also possesses the competencies associated with the construction of drains and culverts and other important related infrastructure. The company is ISO: 9001 2015-certified.
B&J, Beverly says, has undertaken road construction assignments in most of the country’s regions, having secured its first contract in August, 1993, at Bartica, approximately one month after it was established. That contract was awarded by the Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Housing and Water, and Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce.
B&J has also undertaken jobs for the private sector with firms such as Guyana National Industrial Company and ExxonMobil. Many of jobs it undertook in the 90’s and during the early 2000’s were funded by either the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) or the European Union (EU).
B&J’s various road construction undertakings have included roads at Moleson Creek, Rose Hall, Glasgow, and Belvedere in Berbice; Newtown, Hadfield, Bent, and John streets in Georgetown; Foulis and La Bonne Intention on the East Coast Demerara; and Eccles and Diamond on the East Bank Demerara. Beverly told the Stabroek Business that B&J, in the course of a roads contract at Charity New Housing Scheme, had introduced new technology to take account of the soil in the area. Among the company’s recent contracts were the three pedestrian overhead passes at Peter’s Hall, Eccles, and Houston on the East Bank Demerara; the design, supply and installation of 150 kW hydropower plant on the Chiung River, Kato Village, Region Eight; and the design and construction of a Cable Landing Foundation and Compound commissioned by American Manufacturing Services for ExxonMobil.
Beverly says that the commitment of her workers and her determination to deliver quality work over the years have been the secret of such success as she has realised over the past 29 years.
Her confidence buoyed by the results that have been realised up to this time, Beverley told the Stabroek Business that the growth in the Guyana economy has encouraged the company to seek out more lucrative, longer-term contracts. Meantime, she says, B&J is busying itself bidding for other smaller and medium-term contracts. The company, she says, would also welcome partnerships with smaller firms to facilitate more robust bids for more lucrative contracts.
Josephine, Beverley’s daughter, told the Stabroek Business that she committed herself “fully” to the company about two years ago to provide her hard-working mother with the support which she needed. The former student of New Guyana School says that her mother’s enthusiasm for her job no longer disguises the fact that she is in need of support.
Persuaded that academic learning needs to be supplemented by on-the-job exposure, B&J is also keen on recruiting University of Guyana students as interns, thereby affording them the opportunity to secure valuable hands-on experience that is necessary after completion of university.
Beverly says her wish before she calls it a day is to have her firm preside over the construction of a major highway somewhere in Guyana.
