Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

27 Business GEORGE ALSTON (1854-1918) I n 1881, he started the firm Geo R. Alston and Company, a small business that dealt in buying and export of local produce, particularly cocoa. He was soon joined in partnership by his brother, Louis Alston and by Arthur Wright in 1887. By 1919 he had formed a group of companies including T&T’s first match company, Alston’s Shipping and Trinidad Clay Products Limited. Later came the Caribbean Development Company Ltd, the brewing company of our world famous Carib beer. ETHELBERT ‘MEG’ BATTOO (1904-1980) T he name Battoo is associated with the vehicle rental and funeral home businesses. Battoo’s Funeral Home was established in the mid 1940s by Ethelbert ‘Meg’ Battoo, who became a mortician, and Edward ‘Del’ Battoo in Port of Spain. It then merged with J. Haynes Clark Funeral Home, which began operations in the 1880s, thus forming Clark and Battoo Limited.  ‘Battoo Brothers’ already had a trucking, taxi and limousine, the agency for the Mercedes Benz vehicles before buying out J. Haynes Clark. JOSE MARIA BERMUDEZ T he Bermudez family came to Trinidad from Venezuela in 1923 and began making ‘water crackers’ now known as Crix at their factory. The company was founded by Jose Maria Bermudez in 1923 under the name Bermudez Biscuit Factory at Park Street, Port of Spain. In the 1930s the company began distributing its products directly to retail