Kingston Wharf 75th Anniversary

NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2020 42 KINGSTON WHARVES 75TH ANNIVERSARY years of service. They have been through the rounds operating fork- lifts, trucks, stackers, and later in their work lives, the ultimate: the crane. Andrew started his tenure at KWL when the company bought out Port Services through which GraceKennedy operated its ste- vedoring services on the Port of Kingston. The two men share a closely connected professional history. Courtney is a second-gen- eration crane operator. His father, Hickshugh ‘Stumpy’ Gordon, was a crane operator on the port of Kingston in the 1960s. Before he retired in the‘90s, he passed on the art of crane operation to Andrew Thomas, mentoring him into the skilled crane operator he is today. “I was working at Cornwall Agency as a small-crane operator. I heard that Port Services was look- ing for a young person to train as a crane operator, and I applied and got the job.When KingstonWharves bought out the stevedores on the port of Kingston in 2004, I made the transition to KWL,”Andrew said. By the time Courtney started at the port, his father had retired, but his late older brother, Leroy Gordon, was his able trainer, imparting everything he learned from their father. Courtney’s beginning was not in port operation. In his 20s, he was a furniture maker, well on his way to making a career out of it, until his brother encouraged him to get involved in the “family business”. “Leroy ‘rope me in’, took me under his wings,”he said, much like his father Stumpy did with Andrew, and honed his talent in the field. Courtney’s entry into port operations was as a stacker and forklift driver. Over 20 years later, and being sea- soned crane operators, the twomen have received extensive training in crane operations both internation- ally and locally. This includes train- ing at ports in Fort Lauderdale; the Port of Tampa; Port of Miami; Jacinto Port in Houston, Texas; and the Port of Savannah in Georgia, USA. “If you don’t have the passion for crane operations, don’t go into it. It is high stress, and it takes a lot of focus, strength, and stamina. When you sit inside of a crane you have to forget about everything else and give your full attention to what you are doing because so much is at stake,” Andrew noted. Crane operation is a precise sci- ence. “For example, if you have a keyboard, you have to type the words you want on your screen. Crane operation is more detrimen- tal, but it is just as exact. Before you pick up that container, the four twist lock points have to fit into the four corners,” Andrew continued. “If you are having a bad day, don’t go into a crane,”Andrew added, ex- plaining that this is why persons operating this equipment have to be mentally strong and able to re- focus even on bad days. Some of the memories of the early days of KWL were very in- teresting. During Hurricane Ivan, bothmen recalled a hectic schedule as numerous ships were diverted from elsewhere in the Caribbean to KWL as those places had experi- enced more of the negative effects of the storm. That year, Courtney was at the airport, getting ready to travel to the US for a family reun- ion, when he got a call from Miss (Valrie) Campbell. A Maersk vessel had diverted fromThe Bahamas and they needed all hands on deck. This vessel, the Northern Jubilee , at 8500 TEUS, was the largest vessel to dock at KWL. Despite his personal com- mitments, he went back to work to help out his fellow crane operators. Miss Campbell paid for the change in his ticket to facilitate his return. Andrew rememberedwhen a ship ran aground off the coast of Port Royal and he had to put a crane on a barge to get out to the ship to unload the containers - from the ship to place them on the barge - which were then taken to land at the port for unloading. “This was a hectic night,” he recalled. “This was very difficult because Kingston Wharves was not as equipped as it is today. You had one craneworkingmultiple ships. On top of that, because of the capacity of the cranes in those days, we had to un- loadone sideof the ship, and thepilot had to turn the shiparound tounload the other side,”Andrew related. Today,KWLisfullyequippedwithsix state-of-the-art cranes and a fleet of trucks, chassis, andstackers.“Kingston Wharveshas the right equipment and in the right numbers now, and that makesour jobs easier,”Andrewadded, noting that cranes now have the ca- pacity to on-load and off-load cargo fromall sides of the ship.” Courtney agreed that Kingston Wharves is appropriately equipped and that handling its own stevedor- ing is better for the company, which has also streamlined its operations for greater efficiency. “I for one am proud of being a team member at KWL. I know that I am working with one of the best companies in the Caribbean. Referring to his colleague Andrew, Courtney noted,“We are foundation people. Both of us have come up through the system. The fact that we are both still here is a blessing for which I have nothing but gratitude.” Courtney, the second-generation craneoperator, is nowpassingon this skill to another generation. His son is among a group of young persons now being trained as a crane opera- tor at KWL, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, and uncle. His father is still alive, but Courtney misses his big brother Leroy every day and can’t believe that so much time has passed because the pain is still so great, but he knows that each timehe enters that crane anddoes his jobwithexcellence, hepays tribute to his brother’s memory. CRANE CONTINUED FROM 41 Crane operators, Andrew Thomas and Courtney Gordon.