Thursday, January 16, 2025
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TRIBUTE TO MY FALLEN BROTHER RICHARD S. JACKMAN: "YOU STRODE THE STAGE OF LIFE LIKE A GENERAL WITH SUPREME CONFIDENCE , SUPPORTED BY A BRILLIANT ANALYTICAL MIND, AND FORCEFUL, DECISIVE LEADERSHIP SKILL, COMBINED WITH A SENSITIVE, CONTEMPLATIVE, MISCHIEVOUS PERSONALITY WITH TIME AND DEDICATION FOR FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS"
DIEGO MARTIN, TRINIDAD, THURSDAY JANUARY 16TH, 2025
I first encountered Richard Jackman on my entry into high school, St. Mary's College, in 1962. He was a close friend of my cousin, Kip Thompson and was two classes above me. He was to all accounts a brilliant student. Though a junior, I got to know him well through his having lunch at my aunt's house next door to the school. Richard, Kip, Mike Paty and others engaged in card playing after their meal and before returning to afternoon classes.
We lost track of each other when he left for Canada to attend Mc Gill.
Many years later we reconnected when we were both employed by the Trinidad and Tobago Telephone Company in 1983. Richard was a senior executive and I was a department head. Richard, like me, was branded as being arrogant. I confess to the charge. We were both part of the executive team during the largest expansion and modernization phase in the company's history. It was a most exciting time for us.
Richard left to head up the Trinidad Cement Company but we remained in touch socially through my cousin, Kip and other mutual friends. Richard and Nancy returned to Canada, to London Ontario. I visited their home on one occasion and that was the last time I saw him. I heard that he, like my mother, had contracted the long-slow-goodbye disease, Parkinson's.
I will always remember Richard Jackman, a man of impeccable integrity and honesty who was forceful by nature, and direct in his communication. He was born to lead and did so with gusto. Goodbye old friend and comrade, beloved at peace in the bosom of of our Lord God, Yahweh, in Paradise this day.
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