They call her “Trans­port Boss-la­dy”, moth­er of three beau­ti­ful, tal­ent­ed chil­dren, Khaty Ann Mar­tin-Jones was born and bred in San­gre Grande, as the 10th of 12 chil­dren. With a back­ground in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, she is cur­rent­ly the op­er­a­tions su­per­vi­sor at PTSC and act­ing as­sis­tant man­ag­er for the San­gre Grande De­pot.

As the “Trans­port Boss”, Khaty is al­so well-known for her work as the trans­port co­or­di­na­tor for Machel Mon­tano and Xtat­ic Lim­it­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son and through­out the year when the need aris­es. She even pro­vid­ed trans­porta­tion for the cast and crew of movies such as Pan, the Mod­ern Odyssey; Bazood­ee and CBS’ ‘The Amaz­ing Race’ filmed be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go last year. Through her small com­pa­ny, BowTie Ex­ec­u­tive, she has been able to pro­vide ve­hi­cles and dri­vers and man­age and co­or­di­nate all trans­porta­tion sched­ules and needs.

Stephen Doobal

Notwith­stand­ing the fact that Khaty, out­side of her pro­fes­sion­al life, is a nat­ur­al born en­ter­tain­er, she, like many mem­bers of her fam­i­ly, is a singer who is al­so quite versed in the host­ing of shows, wed­dings and cer­e­monies. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she is the sec­re­tary of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Fes­ti­vals Com­mit­tee that plans, or­gan­is­es and ex­e­cutes all car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties for the com­mu­ni­ty of San­gre Grande, which in­cludes the pop­u­lar Car­ni­val Queen pageant that she has been a part of and co­or­di­nat­ing for over 25 years. Khaty proud­ly states that she works with the queen pageant from start to fin­ish in co­or­di­nat­ing the se­lec­tion of del­e­gates to their train­ing and prepa­ra­tion and putting the show (on pageant night) to­geth­er. Khaty has been a judge for many tal­ent com­pe­ti­tions, oth­er queen pageants and ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions. This San­gre Grande boss la­dy, who is known and ad­mired by many, proud­ly waves the flag for the San­gre Grande com­mu­ni­ty high and the WE Mag team is proud to share her sto­ry with you in the in­ter­view be­low:

What are some of your trea­sured mile­stones thus far?

As a moth­er, I must say be­ing blessed with my three chil­dren Elise, Kyle Marc and Kye­sha is one of my trea­sured mile­stones and of course, be­ing a grand­moth­er to a lit­tle di­va name Kayleigh. Added to that, see­ing my name in the cred­its for in­ter­na­tion­al movies and shows that I worked on was tru­ly mes­meris­ing for me. Al­so, when I was grant­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to co-host an awards cer­e­mo­ny with the great Jones P Madeira, I was so ho­n­oured to share a stage with him. I’m still bask­ing in that mo­ment es­pe­cial­ly since he told me I’m an ex­cel­lent pre­sen­ter. Fi­nal­ly, I must men­tion that I am ex­pect­ing an­oth­er grand­child, my first grand­son, in Oc­to­ber so that will be an­oth­er trea­sured mile­stone.

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come?

That was ac­tu­al­ly the first cou­ple of days work­ing on Bazood­ee. I got the job be­cause my friend and men­tor Lor­raine O’Con­nor saw that I had the po­ten­tial to man­age the Trans­port De­part­ment, but I didn’t have a clue about where to source the type of trucks and trail­ers that were need­ed. I had lots of sleep­less nights try­ing to fig­ure things out, but once I got my bear­ings and got things rolling, I made sure that noth­ing could chal­lenge me again.

What are you work­ing on at present?

With re­spect to Trans­port it’s down a notch, but I have a cou­ple ven­tures in the pipelines. I want to start an NGO called I-MOS (In Mem­o­ry of Sher­ry) in ho­n­our of my sis­ter who passed away from can­cer al­most six years ago. She had a day­care and she was a top event dec­o­ra­tor and co­or­di­na­tor in San­gre Grande. She was al­ways ready to help any­one es­pe­cial­ly young girls and young moth­ers who need­ed work. My sis­ter would hire them, teach them and care for them and their chil­dren. There was one young woman named Em­ma who Sher­ry asked us (as a fam­i­ly) nev­er to for­get to help. I want to con­tin­ue help­ing as many Em­mas as I can. The oth­er ven­ture is to have a Miss San­gre Grande Queen Show (out­side of Car­ni­val) where the win­ner will rep­re­sent San­gre Grande at lo­cal legs for In­ter­na­tion­al pageants (For ex­am­ple, Miss Uni­verse and Miss World). San­gre Grande boasts of many beau­ties, like Sharon Im­bert and Alex­ia Charlerie, who have graced in­ter­na­tion­al stages so we want to en­sure that we can have the best rep­re­sent­ing us. In men­tion­ing this, I would like to recog­nise my dream team of young pro­fes­sion­als who will be work­ing with me - they are my train­ing team: Ke­sean Bas­combe, Na­tal­ie Morales, Camille Ray­mond, Crys­tal Charles, Demii Pat­ter­son, Leroy Halls, Sama­ra Ameade, Make­ba Ed­wards and Adana Bo­neo - you will be hear­ing a lot more from this team in the area of beau­ty in San­gre Grande.

What are you most grate­ful for?

I am grate­ful for and to Lor­raine O’Con­nor for be­liev­ing in me and giv­ing me ex­pe­ri­ences of a life­time. I’m most grate­ful for the love and sup­port I have from my chil­dren; I’m most grate­ful for my sig­nif­i­cant oth­er, even though he’s not in the coun­try but when I need to ex­hale he qui­et­ly lis­tens, which then calms me, and he gives sound ad­vice; I’m most grate­ful for my fam­i­ly and a few close friends who have my back at all times and sup­port me no mat­ter what. I’m most grate­ful to the Almighty for my gifts and tal­ents. I’m a firm be­liev­er in giv­ing of your­self tru­ly and com­plete­ly with­out look­ing for any­thing in re­turn and your bless­ings comes back to you hun­dred­fold.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know.

Now I’m stumped. Lol, um peo­ple know that I’m a lover of wine and that cheese­cake is my favourite dessert (New York Cheese­cake to be ex­act) but peo­ple don’t know that I’m an ex­cel­lent cross­word and Su­doku play­er and I’m a laid back kind of girl, not so much of a par­ty per­son even though I’m around the par­ty crowd, and I pre­fer to be be­hind the scenes.

Make­up: Camille Ray­mond IG @camiller­ay­mond_mua

Nails: Tr­isha Joseph IG @bee­joseph5

Wardrobe: Chris­tine Pan­tin