Sir Barry Manfield Bowen’s legacy
Sir Barry Bowen
And while he was loved on San Pedro, Barry’s Bowen’s footprint was all across Belize. He was without compare the most enterprising, progressive, risk-taking businessman in Belize. And he was all Belizean. Bowen was born in Belize as were his Welsh and French parents and grandparents. He never held dual nationality and never sought to invest outside of Belize. Today we asked the current and former Prime Minister about the importance of being Sir Barry.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“He was quite clearly a Belizean giant, a colossus in terms of Belizean enterprise. What I found particularly impressive was the fact that while he could have sat back and simply raked in the money in terms of Belize Brewing Company and the Bottling Works which were sure fire hits, he always ploughed the money back into other ventures in the productive sector that were far riskier, I think really distinguished him and stamped him as a Belizean businessman and Belizean entrepreneur, a Belizean innovator of the first order.”
Rt. Hon. Said Musa, Former Prime Minister
“I need to say very emphatically that the loss of Barry Bowen, his death is a great loss for Belize, because Barry Bowen has been one of the biggest investors in Belize, one of the great financial contributors to the development of Belize, in sports, community, whatever have you, and he typifies for me the true entrepreneur and we have so few of them in Belize that Barry Bowen stood out, an outstanding Belizean in sense of being enterprising businessman, somebody who was not averse to taking risks and the way he went about doing it. Belize today has one of the state of the art breweries in Central America. Belize thanks to Barry Bowen has a state of the art shrimp processing facility, a world class shrimp farm facility, perhaps a too expensive investment as it is turning out now. But that was Barry Bowen, he always did things with class. He was a man of quality, you look at Chan Chich, his resort again, very done with finesse.”
Hon. Michael Finnegan, Friend & Former Employee
“I think we will suffer a loss by Barry Bowen leaving. As you know I have been critical of him and I have always praised him on the other hand because I can draw a line in the sand and be magnanimous, Barry Bowen is one businessman in this country and that puts his money where his mouth is. Barry doesn’t just order sardines and spam and milo and coffee, Barry is creative and could generate employment and could generate business, business on the local level, employment on the local level. I think this country loses something when you lose Barry Bowen.”
Jules Vasquez,
“Speak if you can, you were an employee of Mr. Bowen in the 70s.”
Hon. Michael Finnegan,
“I can always remember a phrase I heard him say to some of the workers downstairs. I was walking in and he was walking out and the workers were standing downstairs and they were all staring at Barry and up comes Barry and Barry looks right at them and he said to them, ‘don’t watch me grow, grow with me.”
Despite his great business success, Sir Barry Bowen in life was not one to seek media attention; in fact he rarely gave interviews. But he did last year when he fought legally for the rights of landowners and access to the courts. The decision of an appeal in this case is still pending. Bowen is survived by his wife, Lady Dixie, four sons Kevin, Michael, Alexander and Dustin and two daughters: Shelly and Courtenay. In addition to the loss suffered by the Bowen and Casey families, the business community has lost one of the largest investors in the country. The magnitude of his business is so extensive that there are high chances that you know someone employed by the Bowen group of companies and the stability of those companies affect the economy of the country. One of his long standing employees is Public Relations Officer, Hilly Martinez, he and Tourism Minister Manuel Heredia, gave testimonials of the magnate in many of our local industries.
Jose Sanchez
“What all different organizations did he start?”
Hilly Martinez
Hilly Martinez, Public Relations Manager, Bowen and Bowen
“We have the Bowen and Bowen group which we do Coca-Cola products, Fanta, Sprite, Crystal Water, Crystal Juices. Belize Brewing does Belikin Beer, Belikin Stout, Guinness, Belikin Premium, which is the brewery section. Then you have Belize Estate and Produce Company, which is involved with Ford motor vehicle agency. You have Belize Aquaculture, which is the shrimp section of the business and they provide also B.E.L. with ten megawatts of electricity. We have the Gallon Jug agro industry section where we have cotton, lumber, we do coffee, hot sauces, jellies. We have an eco hotel there. So those groups remain operational today as they were before Friday.”
Jose Sanchez
“In addition to those businesses you also have schools?”
Hilly Martinez
“Yes we have the Island Academy in San Pedro and we have the Gallon Jug Primary School in Gallon Jug.”
Jose Sanchez
“I understand he’s part of a fundraising effort that should have happened last night.”
Manuel Heredia
“Yes definitely what I heard is that they were having a fundraising effort last night at his school. It’s a very sad situation because he was one of ours here on the island for many years now. He was very cooperative on the island. Particularly, I can recall his last project was the bridge he financed for our municipality. I think it is a big loss not only to our island but to entire Belize since he hired practically over twelve hundred people. I regret it personally because he was a personal friend of mine and I think that definitely my respect to him.”
Jose Sanchez
“How many people would you say are employed by mister Bowen and his different companies?”
Hilly Martinez
“It’s over a thousand people is directly employed by his group of companies.”
Jose Sanchez
“Would you say his impact is country wide?”
Hilly Martinez
“It’s definitely countrywide. Lots of businesses in Belize either sell one of his products and we touch people in various aspects and various stages of life.”
Jose Sanchez
“Is there anything particular would you say Mr. Bowen contributed that no other investor has done?”
Hilly Martinez
“Well I can say this up front that he is probably one of the only investors who has invested everything into Belize. no foreign investment, everything he has is in the productive sector. He has the state of the art shrimp farm, state of the Art Brewery, Gallon Jug, he started his eco-hotel, the cattle – artificial insemination was introduced there, commercial coffee up to a certain extent.”
Sources: 7 News Belize and Channel 5 Belize
