Joel Julien

Ster­ling Frost loves Trinidad and To­ba­go.  

But that love is not just in words, Frost works res­olute­ly every day to try and make the coun­try the best it can be. 

“The true mea­sure of per­son­al suc­cess is to lead with ex­cel­lence, to serve your fel­low­men with com­pas­sion and in­tegri­ty, and to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of oth­ers,” Frost told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day dur­ing an in­ter­view at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies cam­pus, St Au­gus­tine. 

In recog­ni­tion of his pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tence, dis­tin­guished prac­tice, no­table teach­ing, and ser­vice con­tri­bu­tions, Frost was ap­point­ed the first Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice: Man­age­ment Stud­ies at the cam­pus.

He has been an ed­u­ca­tor for 22 years, hav­ing taught over 15 dif­fer­ent cours­es at both the un­der­grad­u­ate and post­grad­u­ate lev­els.

And he did that in con­junc­tion with his ca­reer in bank­ing over the last four decades. 

Frost is the Group Deputy Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Op­er­a­tions and Ad­min­is­tra­tion at First Cit­i­zens.

But that is just the tip of Frost’s di­verse and out­stand­ing ca­reer. 

Frost is com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing op­ti­mal na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment for all sec­tors through his con­tri­bu­tions to var­i­ous gov­ern­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic and civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions.

His ser­vices in the spheres of bank­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice are not episod­ic but have been em­bed­ded and en­grained for decades. 

To un­der­stand Frost, you have to go back to the qui­et vil­lage of Williamsville, which made him the per­son he is to­day.  

“It all goes back to when I was grow­ing up and the val­ue sys­tem that was in­stilled in us as chil­dren by our par­ents and grand­par­ents. We were al­ways taught that no one must ever go hun­gry, that those in need had to be helped, and the on­ly pass­port in life is your ed­u­ca­tion,” Frost said.

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The lone boy among four sib­lings, Frost grew up with his par­ents next door to his grand­par­ents. 

His fond­est mem­o­ries be­ing his grand­moth­er’s phil­an­thropy and her love for gar­den­ing, which has ger­mi­nat­ed in­to Frost be­ing an award-win­ning hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ist, the in­tro­duc­er of over 20 or­na­men­tal plants in­to the land­scape of T&T over the years, and he is the hold­er of the largest col­lec­tion of bromeli­ads in the Caribbean.  

It is that plant that he iden­ti­fies with most. Bromeli­ads are very re­silient plants that bloom even un­der harsh con­di­tions.  

Frost has rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Roy­al Hor­ti­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety Flower show com­pe­ti­tion in Chelsea, Eng­land, and has made no­table con­tri­bu­tions to our Botan­ic Gar­dens, the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and the Wild Fowl Trust in Pointe-a-Pierre. Frost is al­so a zoophilist. His African geese and pea­cocks were a hit at the Agri In­vest­ment Fo­rum and Ex­po held in Port-of-Spain ear­li­er this year. He has served as Sec­re­tary to the Hor­ti­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go as well as, Pres­i­dent of the Gar­den Club of Trinidad. 

Frost at­tend­ed San Fer­nan­do Boys’ Ro­man Catholic School. Every day, walk­ing along Pen­i­tence Street on his way from school to his moth­er’s work­place on High Street, he would be fas­ci­nat­ed by the mag­nif­i­cence of a struc­ture of tow­er­ing pil­lars, and through the doors were smart­ly dressed peo­ple be­hind or­ange lam­i­nate coun­ters with large paint­ings on the walls. He was en­grossed by every­thing about it. The build­ing was the Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank.

At five years old, Frost de­cid­ed that he want­ed to be­come a banker. He has been in the pro­fes­sion for 40 years.

Af­ter pri­ma­ry school, he at­tend­ed San Fer­nan­do Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary (Mod Sec) where he com­plet­ed both the Gen­er­al Cer­tifi­cate of Ed­u­ca­tion Or­di­nary and Ad­vanced Lev­els.  

Frost ex­pe­ri­enced what so many chil­dren have faced and con­tin­ue to face nav­i­gat­ing those ear­ly years of school life. But when he was con­front­ed by bul­ly­ing, he grav­i­tat­ed to­wards the staff room. And there he found more than just refuge, but a spark that ig­nit­ed his love and pas­sion for teach­ing. 

Frost was pre­sent­ed with the Stu­dent of the Year award on two oc­ca­sions dur­ing his time at Mod Sec and was not on­ly House and Sport Cap­tain but al­so Head Pre­fect.

 As a young adult Frost be­came an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Ro­taract Club of San Fer­nan­do and the first ma­jor fundrais­er he spear­head­ed was a con­cert in 1986 at the Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um, San Fer­nan­do, which fea­tured Machel Mon­tano in aid of the Parang Queen Daisy Voisin to as­sist with build­ing her home in Siparia.   

Frost cred­its his moth­er and his child­hood and school en­vi­ron­ment for in­still­ing val­ues of ser­vice to one’s fel­low­man and coun­try, per­se­ver­ance, courage and hard work. “I have nev­er been daunt­ed by the work that one must put in to achieve suc­cess, my work is my hob­by and I en­joy what I do.” That per­son­al sac­ri­fice is ev­i­denced by the 18-hour work days that start at 4 am every day. 

Af­ter decades of work­ing stead­fast­ly, last week Sat­ur­day Frost was be­stowed with this coun­try’s high­est award along­side Dr Roshan Paras­ram. While Paras­ram has been the face of this coun­try’s fight against the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and a house­hold name some did not know of Frost and his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to a bet­ter T&T. 

Lat­er this month Frost will be adding the ti­tle au­thor to his ac­com­plish­ments. 

BOX

Frost is the chair­man of:

• ↓The Ly­di­ans

• ↓The UWI Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences Ad­vi­so­ry Board

• ↓The UWI In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies Ex­ter­nal Ad­vi­so­ry Board

• ↓The UWI De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund Board

• ↓The Foun­da­tion for the En­hance­ment and En­rich­ment of Life (FEEL)

• ↓The First Cit­i­zens Foun­da­tion

He al­so serves as:

• ↓The Deputy Chair of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion of T&T

• ↓The Deputy Chair of the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion

• ↓As­ses­sor to the In­dus­tri­al Court

• ↓Di­rec­tor of the St Lu­cia Elec­tric­i­ty Ser­vices Lim­it­ed

• ↓Di­rec­tor of An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed and its sub­sidiaries

• ↓Di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens Trustee Ser­vices Lim­it­ed

• ↓Di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens In­vest­ment Ser­vices Lim­it­ed

• ↓Di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens In­vest­ment Ser­vices (Bar­ba­dos) Lim­it­ed

• ↓Hon­orary Con­sul Des­ig­nate for the Re­pub­lic of Cos­ta Ri­ca to T&T