Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016 - 2017

Exporters’ Insights

Building a Caribbean Legacy: The Story of Williams Industries Inc.

BY JOVAN REID

As Chairman and Founder of Barbados-based Williams Industries Inc. (WII), Ralph ‘Bizzy’ Williams controls 13 wholly-owned companies and four joint venture enterprises spread between manufacturing, water desalination, alternative energy, electrical engineering, garbage recycling, tourism and real estate. And to describe him as a maverick would be an understatement. In 2000, he earned the Ernst & Young (E&Y) Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year award, and bested that achievement a year later when he beat entrepreneurs across the globe to cop E&Y’s prize in theWorld Entrepreneur of the Year competition in Monaco for his achievements inmultiple enterprise creation. All told, Williams’ businesses employ over 600 people: more than 300 of themare also part owners ofWilliams Industries Inc. through an equitymodel that vests shares to longstanding employees at all levels of the WII organisational chart. For the privately-held industry behemoth – whose stock was estimated to be worth around BDS$320 million at its most recent professional valuation – the reward package has wedded employees to Williams’ vision in a tangible way. Success has not always been easy. Business creation within theWII groupmushroomed sinceWilliams’ first company, Terrapin Racing & Developments Ltd. – a race car manufacturing business he founded in 1972 – folded after fuel price hikes dampened the regional export market for race cars. After Terrapin’s dissolution, Williams took his newly-trained welders and went on to create Structural Systems Ltd. with a Canadian partner, with a vision tomanufacture pre-engineeredmetal buildings andmetal components. Today, Structural Systems sees 40 per cent of its output headed for

export. But meeting the demands of maintaining a competitive export business in the Caribbean has not been without its challenges.

Background of Structural Systems Ltd.

Political red tape in the anti-competitive Barbados market of the 1970s stifled the fledgling Structural Systems business in its early months, causing Williams’ partner to withdraw his investment, which forced Williams to contemplate a second dissolution. “It took the government so long to approve the package that my business partner went back to Canadawithhismoney and invested in amaple syrup farm. I never saw him again,” he recalls. His company had just promised its first suite of buildings in Montserrat, but the absence of fiscal incentives would havemade themnext to impossible to deliver. It was serendipity and an intervention by a former Prime Minister that led to the now standard incentive package being approved, which paved the wayforStructuralSystemstobecometheexportplayer it is today. With subsidiaries in Saint Lucia and Jamaica, the company designs, builds and exports pre-engineered metal buildings from its factory in Barbados. Its engineers and draftsmen draw and design some of theCaribbean’smost sought after buildings onCAD software,andthedesignsarethendownloadedtofully automated machines for a rapid delivery of finished builds.Byasearlyas1984,itcoppedaprizeforthebest commercial building of the year for a structure in St. Kitts, which it erected in just six weeks. “Wherever you go in the Caribbean, I guarantee you will see a Structural Systems building,” Williams tells the OUTLOOK.

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