Mark Lo­quan ex­celled in two spheres crit­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T. A chem­i­cal en­gi­neer, skilled mu­si­cian and pas­sion­ate steel­pan lover, his years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice in the en­er­gy sec­tor and steel­band move­ment are tes­ta­ments of his love and ded­i­ca­tion to this na­tion.

Un­til ill health forced him to step aside, Lo­quan gave of his time, tal­ent and skills to help make T&T a bet­ter place.

Can­cer took his life on Sun­day but he has left be­hind a re­mark­able body of work — en­er­gy in­dus­try ini­tia­tives, mu­sic and films — all vi­tal con­tri­bu­tions to the ad­vance­ment of T&T, for which he was be­stowed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T (ORTT) last year.

The pic­ture that emerges from the many trib­utes paid and mem­o­ries shared since his pass­ing is of a pa­tri­ot and a man of the peo­ple, whose lead­er­ship roles and ex­per­tise had a pos­i­tive im­pact on many.

In the en­er­gy sec­tor alone, there are vol­umes of ac­com­plish­ments through­out an il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer that start­ed at Trinidad Ni­tro­gen Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in 1982 and in­clud­ed re­mark­able mile­stones, in­clud­ing be­ing ap­point­ed the first lo­cal pres­i­dent of Hy­dro Agri Trinidad (now Yara Trinidad Lim­it­ed).

His wide-rang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try in­clud­ed stints in the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope, Africa and Aus­tralia be­fore re­turn­ing to his beloved T&T, where he even­tu­al­ly took up the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) in Sep­tem­ber 2016.

Lo­quan played a key role in cre­at­ing a strong in­dus­try-wide safe­ty cul­ture in T&T, con­tribut­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of the award-win­ning Safe to Work pro­gramme and serv­ing on the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion on Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

In ad­di­tion to those im­pres­sive pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ments, he was al­so one of the coun­try’s lead­ing steel­pan com­posers, as well as a film­mak­er who saw mu­sic as a means of pos­i­tive­ly trans­form­ing com­mu­ni­ties and in­di­vid­u­als.

His ex­ten­sive body of mu­si­cal works in­cludes col­lab­o­ra­tions with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans De­stra Gar­cia and Denyse Plum­mer, pan­nists Am­rit Sama­roo, Ed­win Sama­roo, Ken “Pro­fes­sor” Philmore and many oth­ers.

His love for the steel­pan was be­yond mea­sure. He was al­ready in his 30s when he was taught to play the tenor pan by the leg­endary Cur­tis Pierre, an ex­pe­ri­ence he lat­er de­scribed as “life-chang­ing.”

So be­gan his in­volve­ment in the cul­tur­al sec­tor.

In­spired by the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, Lo­quan pro­duced sev­er­al Panora­ma tunes and be­came a fix­ture at the an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tions cheer­ing on his favourite bands. He summed up his fas­ci­na­tion with the in­stru­ment in a quote on the web­site for his mu­sic: “Steel­pan mu­sic is a har­mo­nious fu­sion of hu­man spir­it and el­e­men­tal steel, echo­ing the soul's ca­pac­i­ty to turn life's raw notes in­to a cap­ti­vat­ing melody of re­silience and uni­ty.”

In his fi­nal years, Lo­quan poured his en­er­gy in­to projects doc­u­ment­ing peo­ple who con­tributed to the suc­cess of the steel­pan move­ment, com­piled in the se­ries A Bet­ter To­mor­row. He co-pro­duced the fi­nal in­stal­ment, Pa­n­yard Uni­verse, a doc­u­men­tary on the Siparia Del­tones Steel Or­ches­tra, with Maria Nunes and Vanes­sa Headley-Brew­ster, while bat­tling the can­cer that even­tu­al­ly took his life.

His oth­er doc­u­men­taries in­clude Du­vone Stew­art: The Man Be­hind the Mu­sic, Women in Pan and Pan on the Move. There were al­so mu­sic videos, in­clud­ing “My Home,” a col­lab­o­ra­tion with jazz trum­peter Eti­enne Charles.

Un­doubt­ed­ly, there­fore, Mark Lo­quan ORTT was a true pa­tri­ot who tire­less­ly served this na­tion and left a lega­cy in en­er­gy and steel.