GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

He was con­sid­ered by many of his peers as larg­er than life and a gi­ant among men, and one who skil­ful­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly shaped T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor while sit­ting on sev­er­al boards mak­ing strate­gic de­ci­sions.

Those in the con­gre­ga­tion to bid farewell to Mark Lo­quan, who in 2024 was award­ed the na­tion’s high­est award for this work in the en­er­gy sec­tor, were al­so told of the in­stru­men­tal roles he played in de­vel­op­ing this coun­try’s cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly pan which he loved.

Among those there for his fi­nal send-off at the St Fin­bar’s RC Church, Morne Co­co Road, Diego Mar­tin, was a som­bre-look­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who last week de­scribed Lo­quan as a friend, as well as in­dus­try lead­ers.

Lo­quan, 63, had bat­tled brain can­cer for which he un­der­went surgery.

He died on April 6.

The fourth of five chil­dren, Lo­quan’s eu­lo­gy was de­liv­ered by his son Evan, who por­trayed his fa­ther as al­ways up­lift­ing oth­ers with kind­ness and re­spect and one who was des­tined for great­ness.

Evan al­so paint­ed an­oth­er side to Lo­quan, one of a de­vot­ed fam­i­ly man, and a lov­ing hus­band and fa­ther who was not on­ly a good provider but al­so un­der­stood the im­por­tance of each of these roles.

“What stood out to me the most as his son was his char­ac­ter. He al­most nev­er called me by my name. To him, I was sim­ply son, and the way he said it warm, sup­port­ive, en­cour­ag­ing, it car­ried more mean­ing than any ti­tle ever could. In my hard­est mo­ments, he be­lieved in me even when I didn’t. When I made mis­takes as a child he didn’t yell. He didn’t judge or shame me. He sim­ply ex­plained,” Evan said.

He al­so shared the love his fa­ther showed to­wards his (Lo­quan’s) own moth­er.

“In her lat­er years he made sure she would want for noth­ing. He show­ered her with af­fec­tion, called and vis­it­ed her reg­u­lar­ly al­though she lived over­seas. In her fi­nal months he set up dai­ly fam­i­ly calls for prayer and con­ver­sa­tions,” Evan re­called.

Lo­quan al­so be­lieved in doc­u­ment­ing what mat­tered with one ex­am­ple be­ing the fam­i­ly tree which cap­tured lega­cy in pho­tos.

A lover of cof­fee, Lo­quan who was al­so a mu­si­cian in his own right re­mained calm and lov­ing to the end while al­so think­ing about his coun­try, Evan added.

“On his death bed, he looked at me and said he gave every­thing and he did give every­thing. What he want­ed most was peace and more time with the ones he tru­ly loved. Now that he has that peace we will miss him dear­ly,” Evan said as he vowed to car­ry his fa­ther’s in­valu­able lessons of in­tegri­ty and love for all.

The for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) and Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T re­cip­i­ent was al­so re­mem­bered by his col­leagues in the en­er­gy in­dus­try.

Fitzroy Hare­wood, pres­i­dent of Point Lisas Ni­tro­gen Ltd not­ed Lo­quan’s un­re­lent­ing ad­vo­ca­cy for sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach­es to in­dus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion on safe­ty and con­trac­tor man­age­ment as well as his “amaz­ing au­then­tic demon­stra­tion” of work-life bal­ance and his peren­ni­al in­volve­ment in the arts which all con­tributed to his many roles.

Hare­wood fur­ther not­ed that Lo­quan’s achieve­ments in the en­er­gy in­dus­try de­rived from the ear­ly days of the com­mis­sion­ing of the Trin­gen Two plant which at that time, was the most ef­fi­cient plant in the coun­try and the first dig­i­tal­ly con­trolled one.

Chair­man of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), Vin­cent Pereira, who al­so paid his re­spects to Lo­quan de­scribed him as more than a friend.

Pereira said they both met over 40 years ago, hav­ing both joined the en­er­gy sec­tor to­geth­er.

“Mark was down­stream, I was in the up­stream, but over the years, we built a re­la­tion­ship, that I would de­scribe as en­dur­ing. Mark was my friend, he was my in­dus­try col­league, we served on boards to­geth­er. He was a joint ven­ture part­ner at BHP Trinidad,” Pereira added.

Apart from whole­heart­ed­ly serv­ing the coun­try Lo­quan al­so served his com­mu­ni­ty with ease and hu­mil­i­ty.

Catholic priest, Fa­ther Ur­ban Hudlin, who de­liv­ered the homi­ly de­scribed such un­wa­ver­ing servi­tude as that of “glimps­ing the face of God.”

“He gave him­self gen­er­ous­ly. His mu­sic was not just en­ter­tain­ment. It was prayer. A way of unit­ing peo­ple. A way of lift­ing our na­tion­al spir­it,” Hudlin said, as he de­scribed Lo­quan’s mu­sic as giv­ing a voice to na­tion­al hope.

Mov­ing away from tra­di­tion, Hudlin called on the con­gre­ga­tion for a stand­ing ova­tion for Lo­quan as he “en­tered the King­dom of Heav­en.”