The NESC has said it is deeply sad­dened by the pass­ing of its Chair­man and re­tired Pres­i­dent of Op­er­a­tions at Petrotrin, Wayne Bertrand on 14th De­cem­ber, 2022.

Bertrand, who re­tired as Pres­i­dent of Op­er­a­tions at Petrotrin in 2008, had four decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the oil and gas sec­tor.

He was ap­point­ed Chair­man of the NESC's Board of Gov­er­nors in 2017.

"As Chair­man, Bertrand gen­er­ous­ly shared his in­valu­able wealth of knowl­edge, wis­dom and ex­pe­ri­ence to help chart the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the NESC. His lead­er­ship style was marked by hu­mil­i­ty, con­ge­nial­i­ty and in­clu­sion. Whether it was a mem­ber of the board of gov­er­nors or a stu­dent, Bertrand al­ways took the time to lis­ten," an NESC state­ment said.

“The NESC is grate­ful for Wayne’s con­tri­bu­tion to the in­sti­tu­tion’s de­vel­op­ment over these last five years. His busi­ness acu­men, shrewd ad­vice and broad net­work were in­valu­able as­sets to the NESC,” said Kern Dass, NESC Pres­i­dent. “The role of Chair­man of­fers no fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion but Wayne saw his ser­vice to NESC as an in­vest­ment in his beloved coun­try. He al­ways made him­self avail­able to us and had the best in­ter­est of both stu­dents and staff at heart.”

A ge­ol­o­gist by train­ing, Bertrand served in many tech­ni­cal and lead­er­ship po­si­tions along the pe­tro­le­um val­ue chain dur­ing his dis­tin­guished ca­reer. He al­so served on the boards of sev­er­al com­pa­nies in­clud­ing Neal & Massy En­er­gy Ltd (now Massy En­er­gy), Voy­ager En­er­gy Trinidad Ltd, Niko Re­sources T&T Ltd, and served terms as the Chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad & To­ba­go and Ven­trin Pe­tro­le­um Co Ltd.

On the aca­d­e­m­ic side, Bertrand was a Duprey Dis­tin­guished Fel­low in the prac­tice of Pe­tro­le­um Stud­ies with over thir­ty-five lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly pub­lished pa­pers. He was al­so a for­mer Head of the Pe­tro­le­um Geo­science Unit in the Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, an ini­tial Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor for the BSc Pe­tro­le­um Geo­science Pro­gramme at the UWI and the Con­venor of its Aca­d­e­m­ic-In­dus­try Com­mit­tee. He was an alum of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine (BSc. Ge­ol­o­gy) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Co­lum­bia in Cana­da (MSc. Ge­ol­o­gy).

"Above all, Bertrand was a man of faith and fam­i­ly, and was ac­tive­ly in­volved in his lo­cal church. When he and his wife Aimee cel­e­brat­ed fifty years of mar­riage in 2020, they re­ceived a spe­cial pa­pal bless­ing cer­tifi­cate from the Vat­i­can to ho­n­our the oc­ca­sion. The Board of Gov­er­nors, Man­age­ment and Staff of the NESC ex­tend our heart­felt con­do­lences to Bertrand’s wife Aimee, his daugh­ter Michel’e, his ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends and col­leagues," the state­ment said.