Butch Stewart
Interview by Jeff Burger - August 1, 2008
Gordon (“Butch”) Stewart had a comfortable middle-class childhood on Jamaica’s Honeymoon Bay, so his story doesn’t qualify as a rags-to-riches tale. But he most certainly went “to riches.”
Stewart began his career at the Dutch-owned Curacao Trading Company, where he earned enough in five years as a sales manager to open his own air-conditioner service and distribution business in 1968. That company, Appliance Traders Ltd., expanded rapidly and now sells a wide assortment of household and commercial appliances and supplies.
But Stewart was just getting started. In 1981, he bought the Montego Bay property that launched his wildly successful couples-only Sandals Resorts chain. And today, he oversees a billion-dollar, 9,000-employee empire that includes 12 Sandals Resorts, six other high-end Caribbean vacation properties, Appliance Traders and a leading Jamaican daily newspaper. All together, he owns and operates two dozen companies that collectively constitute his country’s largest private-sector group, biggest foreign-exchange earner and largest nongovernment employer.
As Stewart explained in our interview, private aviation helped him achieve his remarkable string of successes. But after talking with him in New York City recently, we suspect that his ultra-upbeat demeanor deserves some credit, too. True, he had a few negative things to say about the Jamaican government and about the newspaper that competes with his, but a smile rarely left his face as he discussed his resorts and career and told us how much fun he is having.
He even praised New York’s weather–which on the day we met featured a cold, drenching and windswept rain. When we commented that he probably hadn’t left the Caribbean mainly to experience conditions like this, he replied in his thick Jamaican accent, “Oh, I love this weather. If it would snow later on, it’d be all the better.”
Tell us about your childhood.
I had a great childhood, one of the best. When you grow up by the sea, you do a lot of fishing and swimming. You do what comes naturally. And the communities I grew up in were so protective; everybody looked after everybody. I think it does an enormous amount for you later in life. It allows you to look after yourself. It allows you to be protective of others. It makes you realize that you’re no more special than the rest.
Why did you leave school at 16?
There were gangs in the school and I was fed up with school. I wanted to work. So I hopped a motorcycle and left.
How did you end up as a sales manager for Curacao Trading Company?
My mother had a little appliance shop and I loved going there to sell people toasters or fridges. So I got a job selling. I always wanted to sell.
What were you selling at Curacao?
Radios, stoves, refrigerators–that kind of thing. My department just got bigger and bigger. It was much bigger than the rest of the organization.
Share This Article With Others