Today, Kevin C. Smith is the Post Master General of BVI Post, and took all the lessons learnt from the various experiences of his life and is applying them into his everyday life and hopes that young people of today would find his life stories useful in helping them to see that all is not lost and they too can end up in great jobs and have a good life regardless of the odds that are presented or regardless of what people may think or say about them.

The former student of the Ebenezer Thomas Primary and the BVI High School got his first job at First Pennsylvania Bank now Banco Popular in 1988 as a teller. Smith never planned for any of his career paths and was mainly focused on having a job that paid the bills.

All did not start off well for this young Virgin Islander who humbly accepted that during his years of schooling and university life, he allowed the perception that he couldn’t amount to anything to get to him and at times he even was doing things that he should not have done. The stigma that stuck with him was based on the perception of who people believed his father to be.

For the educational benefits it offered, the young Virgin Islander joined the US Military in 1990 and was trained at Fort Knox in the US as a Combat Solider before being deployed to Germany. However, during his two and a half years stint there he attended the Nuclear, Chemical and Biological School (NBC) and was selected by Department of the Army to attend officer training at Westpoint Academy. The length of time required for the military by the programe and the new realities learnt in the NBC School convinced him to get out. In 1991 while stationed in Germany doctors found a tumor in his body initially believed to be cancerous but later proved benign.

Having a natural knack for the financial field, after his return in the summer of 1992 to the Virgin Islands, he started to work at Scotiabank as a teller and worked his way up to head teller.

His interest in furthering his education had diminished and Smith said he had just wanted to cool out and hang with the boys. But with a stern “wake up” call from his then girlfriend now his wife, Smith proceeded to further his academic studies at the University of the Virgin Islands in 1995 in pursuit of a Bachelors of Business Administration.

While there, he still didn’t pay enough attention to his studies in the beginning and ended up with two Fs during his first semester.

It wasn’t long after that, the young man said he began to re-evaluate himself and started to place a serious effort to make use of his educational opportunity. He realized at that point he was not good at Mathematics.

Smith humbled himself and accepted that he was not good at the subject and sought help from a group of young men who taught him that Mathematics could not be studied but practiced. They further encouraged diligence in all of his course work.

At the end of that semester, Smith turned the two Fs into A minuses, a trend that continued throughout his studies where he excelled. He became an Honor student including the Dean’s list, Who’s Who programme as well as Junior and Senior top honors. He graduated Suma Cum Laude and among the top six in his class out of 200.

“I learnt a valuable lesson; to recognise I had a flaw, humble myself and ask the people around me that could help to assist me and be willing to accept the lessons and apply it. And I think that is something I carry for the rest of my life,” said Smith.

Another transition point in his life came from his job which he took up during university at a hedge fund company called Globalvest Management Company in St. Thomas.

It was there that he learnt that academic achievements did not necessarily equate to job performance. He recalls how his interviewer tossed his transcript that he was proud of in the trash and insisted that he articulates what he understood about Finance. Like the lessons he learnt from his parents and the military, results were what mattered most.

After turning down a permanent job at Globalvest to return home in 1999 following his graduation, Smith took up a job at Citco in Corporate and Trust where he had no prior experience but sought to excel.

Smith quickly learnt and became an Accounts Manager with his own staff under four years.

Smith left Citco in 2004 and was approached by the then Government to run the BVI Post Office.

He became the youngest Postmaster General in the region at 33 and said he saw and continues to see the potential in the post office as a useful vehicle in strengthening the links of the Territory to the rest of the world.

“I always felt it presents the greatest potential to link the BVI to the outside world that would in some way foster innovation and entrepreneurship among BVI islanders to capitalize on external markets in which distribution plays a major role.,” Smith said explaining some of his accomplishments so far including getting the the transit times down for mail which was greatly reduced, Implementation of the Post Code which was on the table for quite some time, adding new services such as eZone in which the BVI was a regional leader among its peers in 2009, incremental improvement in the visibility of philately and working to developing the electronic platform for the post office which is an ongoing process as well as the upcoming launch of the Amerijet representation.

“I have always learnt to focus on the end result; to be goal oriented.  That is what matters most and attention to detail. Had I not humbled myself and listened to my wife, listened to my roommates or even listened to those I failed, many of the opportunities and successes I have had would have escaped me,” the Young Professional remarked thoughtfully.

A lot of what he does is due to his strong faith and belief in God. The Sea Cows Bay son of the soil became a born again Christian in 1992 and is currently a member of the St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Sea Cows Bay where he is striving to give back “quietly” to his church and community.

He is also assisting at the Ebenezer Thomas Primary speaking to young kids regularly during morning devotions at the school whenever he is invited as well as the Fraser, Forbes, Cills and Johnson family reunion back to school programme in 2010.

Another important milestone and life-shaper for Smith was the death of his sister Devrel Smith-Brown who passed away on May 1, 2002. She was his role model and excelled in whatever she did.

He said she had great expectations for him and felt that he failed those expectations and said her death has led him to question the purpose for his own life and decided to make his life about change: “I decided I would dedicate my life towards making a difference in whatever I laid my hands to. My goal is always to strive on improving what I am involved with and improving on my own performance.”

While his current job at the BVI Post was never where he envisioned to be, an early childhood experience ironically inked him closely to the postal services.

He recalled as a young boy attending the Ebenezer Thomas Primary School, he and others would enjoy watching the postman collect mail every day from the old English pillar boxes until he inadvertently had his first two fingers of his right hand partially severed when the postman slammed it shut.

His fingers had to be surgically restored but it did not keep him from going to school, as his mom insisted that he learned to write with his left hand and still go to school.

His entire discipline to stick things through regardless of the obstacles, he credits to the discipline he received from both his mom Beverly Hodge-Smith and dad Leslie Smith from Sea Cows Bay which also helped him to get though military much easier. He also credited the training he received from the Cubs Scout and the Boys Scout at the hands of Ulric Scatliffe, Frenchie Gumbs, Lyndon Richardson and others, and of course the influence of the church.

“I learnt regardless of what the restriction or constraints was you had to find a way,” said Smith

“My story is not unique. We were not as fortunate and succeeded from hard work. In my village (Sea Cows Bay) as in others, it’s a common trend,” he said.

While he enjoys what he does as a manager and leader, Smith said from a young age he was seen as a talented student with the arts and was encouraged to pursue the career but didn’t do it because he grew up hearing that art doesn’t pay.

While he is an ardent reader and enjoys writing, he aspires to one day become a published writer.

He is the husband of Mrs. Bisa Smith and proud father of Leah and Levi Smith.