For­mer Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor of the Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny (now Guardian Me­dia) and chair­man of the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny Al­win Chow has died.

Chow died yes­ter­day al­though the cause of his death was not im­me­di­ate­ly known.

He was the hus­band of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Miss Uni­verse 1977, Janelle “Pen­ny” Com­mis­siong-Chow and close rel­a­tive to T&T Olympic row­er, Fe­lice Chow.

Chow left Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed on April 1, 1996, fol­low­ing a con­tro­ver­sy that brewed af­ter then-Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day chal­lenged the ed­i­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy of the news­pa­per.

He went in­to pri­vate busi­ness and was last the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Trin­i­ty Hous­ing Lim­it­ed.

For­mer jour­nal­ist Neil Giusep­pi wrote on Face­book yes­ter­day, “I have just learnt of the pass­ing of an old school­mate and dear friend Al­win Chow. Al­win’s and my paths al­so crossed pro­fes­sion­al­ly as he was chair­man of the board of Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny for part of the time when I served as Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor in the ear­ly 1990s.”

For­mer Guardian jour­nal­ist Pe­ter Ray Blood added, “Al­win was my first MD at the Trinidad Guardian. He was an in­spi­ra­tional leader with a vi­sion. He was stern when he had to but was fair and lent his ear to new ideas from us less­er mor­tals on the press floor. I am, sad­dened by his pass­ing.”

An­oth­er for­mer Guardian jour­nal­ist, Nicole Duke-West­field said, “It was be­cause of Al­win Chow that I be­came a jour­nal­ist. He hired sev­er­al UWI grad­u­ates at the time, called us “man­age­ment trainees’ and of­fered us op­por­tu­ni­ties in the news­room and oth­er de­part­ments of the Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny. Al­win Chow was a bold man with a vi­sion for the news­pa­per. He was di­rect, shrewd and tough as nails.”

Chow was 72 years old.