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As Chairman and Founder of Barbados-based
Williams Industries Inc. (WII), Ralph ‘Bizzy’
Williams controls 13 wholly-owned companies
and four joint venture enterprises spread between
manufacturing, water desalination, alternative
energy, electrical engineering, garbage recycling,
tourism and real estate. And to describe him as a
maverick would be an understatement.
In 2000, he earned the Ernst & Young (E&Y)
Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year award, and
bested that achievement a year later when he beat
entrepreneurs across the globe to cop E&Y’s prize in
theWorld Entrepreneur of the Year competition in
Monaco for his achievements inmultiple enterprise
creation.
All told, Williams’ businesses employ over 600
people: more than 300 of themare also part owners
ofWilliams Industries Inc. through an equitymodel
that vests shares to longstanding employees at all
levels of the WII organisational chart. For the
privately-held industry behemoth – whose stock
was estimated to be worth around BDS$320
million at its most recent professional valuation
– the reward package has wedded employees to
Williams’ vision in a tangible way.
Success has not always been easy. Business creation
within theWII groupmushroomed sinceWilliams’
first company, Terrapin Racing & Developments
Ltd. – a race car manufacturing business he
founded in 1972 – folded after fuel price hikes
dampened the regional export market for race cars.
After Terrapin’s dissolution, Williams took his
newly-trained welders and went on to create
Structural Systems Ltd. with a Canadian partner,
with a vision tomanufacture pre-engineeredmetal
buildings andmetal components. Today, Structural
Systems sees 40 per cent of its output headed for
Building a Caribbean
Legacy:
The Story of
Williams Industries Inc.
export. But meeting the demands of maintaining
a competitive export business in the Caribbean has
not been without its challenges.
Background of Structural
Systems Ltd.
Political red tape in the anti-competitive Barbados
market of the 1970s stifled the fledgling Structural
Systems business in its early months, causing
Williams’ partner to withdraw his investment,
which forced Williams to contemplate a second
dissolution.
“It took the government so long to approve the
package that my business partner went back to
Canadawithhismoney and invested in amaple syrup
farm. I never saw him again,” he recalls.
His company had just promised its first suite of
buildings in Montserrat, but the absence of fiscal
incentives would havemade themnext to impossible
to deliver. It was serendipity and an intervention by a
former Prime Minister that led to the now standard
incentive package being approved, which paved the
wayforStructuralSystemstobecometheexportplayer
it is today.
With subsidiaries in Saint Lucia and Jamaica, the
company designs, builds and exports pre-engineered
metal buildings from its factory in Barbados. Its
engineers and draftsmen draw and design some of
theCaribbean’smost sought after buildings onCAD
software,andthedesignsarethendownloadedtofully
automated machines for a rapid delivery of finished
builds.Byasearlyas1984,itcoppedaprizeforthebest
commercial building of the year for a structure in St.
Kitts, which it erected in just six weeks.
“Wherever you go in the Caribbean, I guarantee you
will see a Structural Systems building,” Williams
tells the OUTLOOK.
BY JOVAN REID
Exporters’ Insights
112
www.carib-export.com