Ken Morgan at PolyFlex Foam Ltd In background are some of the insulation foams produced by the company.

As founder, executive chairman and principal shareholder of the Morgans Group of Companies, 63-year-old Kenneth Morgan is already assured a premier spot in the annals of Jamaica's economic history.

But the contributions of this rare breed of entrepreneur to Jamaica's manufacturing sector could outlive him by several generations.

The Morgan family and company executives in the firm's board room on Lady Musgrave Road. (Seated) Ken and Joyceline Morgan, while standing are Aswad Morgan and Nayo Morgan Farquharson. Missing is Dr Kai Morgan.

For Morgan and his wife, Joyceline, who is also his business partner, have inspired their three children into joining the business to ensure generational continuity of a family tradition that began with Morgan's father David, and mother Edna, over 50 years ago.

Today, the Morgans Group - just a year shy of its landmark 25th anniversary - is a family-run, vertically integrated conglomeration of three firms that drill deep into the manufacturing industry.

The companies:

. Ther-A-Pedic Caribbean Ltd is a state-of-the-art manufacturer of high-end, and mass market beds - through a combination of indigenous designs and licensing arrangement with Ther-A-Pedic International. From the 40,000-square-foot facility at Naggo Head in St Catherine, 35 employees produce a wide range of bedding products that include pillows, toppers, mattress protectors, and mattress converters that are popular in the hotel industry.

Customers Peter Tucker and wife Cynthia try out the air bed, the latest addition to the high-end bedding lines produced by Ther-A-Pedic Jamaica. Looking on: Ken and Aswad Morgan.

. Polyflex Foam Ltd operates out of a 40,000 square foot factory located on Padmore Drive in Kingston. This facility, with 30 employees, uses a modern continuous pouring conveyor system to produce four distinct types of foams that find application in the construction, bedding, and furniture industries.

. Jumbolon Jamaica Ltd has its 35,000-square-foot factory near Cross Roads in Kingston - and has the distinction of being the only company in the Caribbean that produces low-density polyethylene foam. Manufactured through an extrusion process, the foams have two broad applications: as protective packaging for furniture, glassware, farm produce; and for insulation - sound, thermal, expansion joints in buildings, and as underlay for carpets and laminate floors. There are 20 employees.

Noel Wood (right), plant supervisor at PolyFlex, operates a cutting machine while plant manager Horace Campbell (left) and Ken Morgan look on.

The corporate headquarters of the Morgans Group is located on Lady Musgrave Road in Kingston. From here, the executives - mainly family members - oversee the operations of the group.

As general manager, Joyceline Morgan directs the day-to-day operations of the various companies within the group. Eldest sibling Aswad, an MBA graduate, is in charge of marketing and product development, while scion Nayo Morgan Farquharson, an engineer by training - as group support manager, directs public relations and helps with general administration.

Elder daughter Dr Kai Morgan, a trained psychologist and lecturer at the University of the West Indies Mona campus, is increasingly getting involved in the business, and helps on a part-time basis with human resources.

Even members of the extended family are involved in the company, among them, Kenrick Fearon, the roving production director. He is the brother of Mrs Morgan.
"We are what you call fundamental manufacturers," declares Ken Morgan, in putting the group operation in perspective.

There is in this assertion, not just pride of achievement but an awareness of the special place that manufacturing has in the heart and soul of many Jamaicans.

Ken Morgan's father was one such individual.
In fact, Morgan himself is quick to point to his parents - both now deceased - as not only providing his first entrepreneurial inspiration, but as his earliest mentors and partners in business.

"My father was a self-made businessman who was into everything, from real estate to woodcutting, to making ties to being an independent contractor with the KSAC," he says.
His mother operated a leather shop in Denham Town - walking distance from their home.

"I used to help her in the shop from age eight, especially on Saturdays and Sundays when she was out," Morgan recalls.

The fourth of five children, Morgan attended kindergarten at Price Street, followed by a year at Dehman Town Primary and then All Saints on Studley Park Road where he completed his primary school education.

"I was an excellent student," he brags. "I used to do good exams in classroom, so much so that when I was sent up for Common Entrance [Exam] I was among the top five. I was good at math."

But young Morgan had a fatal weakness that would retard, at least temporarily, his academic progress.
"When the morning came to sit Common Entrance Exam, I was so nervous that I went to the school bathroom and vomited and did not sit the exam," he says. "The following year, when I attempted to re-sit the exam, the same thing happened."

Morgan never forgets his parents, especially his mother, for their support during what must have been a traumatic experience for the youngster - a child in whom the proud parents had invested so much hope.

"My parents were disappointed," he acknowledges, but reckons that "they would have recognised that I was suffering from nervousness".

Missing out on Common Entrance was a setback but not the end of the rope for this teenager.

Indeed, even as a child, Morgan displayed qualities that set him apart from his neighbourhood friends. For example, thrifty and industrious, he was able to save the money earned from helping his mother, and earn interest on it by lending it to friends.

"My brother Winston and I would compete to see who would save more," he says, recalling how they would "dig holes, put the saving pans in them and drop money in the pans".
Supplementing his income by raising chickens, young Morgan gradually began to develop a reputation as a precocious little businessman.

"My mother was my best customer," he says. "She always weighed the chickens she bought and never failed to pay for them."

These were the early subliminal lessons in honesty and fairplay that set the stage for young Morgan's own code of ethics and professionalism as an adult.

Those lessons were explicitly reinforced by his father, who would take the enthusiastic youngster to the bank and other business transactions, so he could watch and learn the art of deal making.

There is one particular experience that is indelibly etched in Morgan's memory.

He recalls how, at the tender age of 12, his father encouraged him to take over a meat shop that had been closed down in the community where they were living.
"I was able to source the meat from family friends who were also in the business," he explains. "I did budget with my father - I got money from him but had to negotiate my own prices. I had to report on the sales on Sundays."
Despite his reputation as a precocious little entrepreneur who was good at math, Morgan was about to experience his seminal lesson in business failure.
"At every budget report I would have less money than I started off with. I was losing money."
He was dumbfounded.
In fact, to this day, Morgan is yet to understand the precise underlying factors behind the constant shortfall, and the ultimate collapse of his early enterprise. Nevertheless, he remains philosophical about the experience.

"I guess my father was teaching me about business," he remarks. "I gained lots of experience."

More lessons were on the way - with his father's foray in the mattress manufacturing business in the 1950s - on land he acquired at Union Gardens near Three Miles in Kingston.
A little old van and a basic structure covered with zinc were the main assets of this enterprise.

"My father employed four men and we were in the coir mattress business."

This latest venture meant greater exposure to all facets of business for the young Morgan, now in his mid-teens.
"I started to go with him to Kingston to buy material like mattress ticking, and coir," says Morgan. "I got to learn about negotiating good prices. I would also go to the country with him to sell, with the van, two to three times per week."

The first-generation Morgan family enterprise was in the making: father, mother Edna making pillows to complement the beds; sister and seamstress Josephine doing the sewing and brother Winston the driver.

"That is how I got introduced to Jamaica and the business sector," Morgan points out. "I met lots of businessmen. They had enormous respect for my father."

The mattress manufacturing business gave the zealous teenager an opportunity to learn all aspects of the bedding business: from procurement to manufacturing and sales.
By Morgan's recollection, the business grew, but not fast enough to be able to comfortably support the maturing family with their increasing needs.

From those early days, the young but insightful Morgan recognised that as an entrepreneur, his father had a fatal flaw: he lacked the risk-taking instinct that was vital for individuals without capital to "take their company to a new level".

"I would go to father and say 'let us borrow some money and set up a real factory'."

On a few occasions David Morgan would heed the prodding of his son, but each time the instinctive risk aversion would kick in, and his father would prematurely repay the bank without fully utilising the loan.

His mother too, had the insight to recognise the deficiency.
Morgan's mother, "having seen the situation", urged him to go back to school.

"All of us could not rely on the business, and father was not prepared to take risks. That was a special day that made the difference to my life," says Morgan.

At 18, Morgan started looking around for educational opportunities, and at the urging of friends, decided to visit the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST - now UTech).

Here is how he recalls the experience: "I went there ignorant of the entry requirements, so when I heard and realised that I did not qualify I was disappointed. The place was green and beautiful, nicely laid out. The students were walking around nicely dressed. I was so excited just being there."
Morgan enrolled for evening classes, and within a year qualified to enter the evening programme at CAST.
"After a year in evening classes I loved the college so much that I wanted to go full-time," he beams. To fulfil this passion, this ambitious youngster pursued and achieved the improbable: he sat the notoriously tough entry exam at CAST and succeeded.
As a full-time engineering student, Morgan's leadership qualities became even more apparent. By the second year he won the presidency of the students' association, a position which required him to interface with the leaders of the institution, including the new principal, Dr Alfred Sangster.

It was at this stage that he also met a University of the West Indies nursing student, Joyceline, who later became his wife.
"Our relationship helped me through tough periods," he says of Joyceline. "She was different. She has been a force to reckon with."

He also met then Opposition Leader Michael Manley, and Douglas Aitken, one of the principals in the big engineering firm Reginald Aitken.

Morgan was among eight of the initial 40 students who actually graduated from the engineering programme in 1971.
A job was waiting on him at Reginald Aitken, which had contracts with bauxite and sugar companies, and which therefore took Morgan deep into rural Jamaica.

Through a productivity incentive programme Morgan was able to earn enough money to "buy a house in Edgewater, a car, and got married within one year".

While at the engineering firm he borrowed $20,000 to modernise his father's factory, and increase its output. Morgan had always maintained an active interest in his father's business.

"The bank manager at the time said that he would only provide the funding if I was prepared to be involved in the business," explains Morgan. "I now had a chance to do all the things I was suggesting to my father. The money allowed us to put some new policies in place: no more second-hand vehicle, buy in bulk and so on."

Just when the business appeared to be responding to the new capital and management infusion, tragedy struck: in 1974 the family home and adjoining business and entire stock were gutted by fire.

The distraught father landed in hospital while the mother was taken in by Morgan and his wife at their home in Edgewater.
Morgan decided to rebuild the business - this time out of pocket and on land in Spanish Town that he bought from a friend.

A change of job in the mid-1970s - to another engineering firm, McCurnin Simon, came with increased pay and permanent posting in Kingston.

"I negotiated a good salary and a brand new Triumph, which the company bought for about $3,800. I felt like a real big shot."

While at McCurnin Simon, Morgan struck a deal with retired businessman K R B Lee to take over a furniture-making factory Lee once operated on Elgin Road, in Kingston.
Initially he employed a manager to run the factory but later resigned his engineering job to run his own firm full-time.

"When I reported to work at my factory the workmen were the happiest people," he recalls.

He gives his wife credit for her support over the years, and in particular during this high-risk period.

"My wife did not question my decisions, even though the plant could not pay the type of money I was earning as an engineer," he acknowledges.

Under the arrangement, Lee leased Morgan the building and property and Morgan bought the machines. He had to pay Lee $2,000 per month.

The 2,500-square-foot factory employed 25 job workers to make a range of household furniture - from dressers to coffee tables to dining and living room sets. Mahogany was the wood of choice.

Customers were large retailers across Jamaica, with Morgan knocking on their doors in search of business daily.
The business struggled, but not for long. Morgan, on the whim of a friend, decided to invest in a comfortable vehicle for the long, daily journeys to the country. He paid $4,000 for what he describes as "a spanking new two-year-old Mercedes Benz".

For this thoughtful and introspective businessman, the experience that followed provided a window into the unique sociology and psychology of the Jamaican business landscape.

Morgan was unable to conceal his slight embarrassment in relating how this run of good luck came about.
"The Benz caused business to triple, even though I did not plan it," he lets on. "I was shocked to see how when I pulled up at business places I now got priority treatment. The owners of the retail stores would say to the clerks 'let Mr Morgan in', even though there were other customers ahead of me."

Sales topped $1.2 million within a year - sometime between 1974-75.

By 1976, the growth forced Morgan to seek larger space for the furniture business - registered since 1974 as Morgan Industries. He moved into 8,000 square feet of space at Nanse Pen in Kingston.

Morgan Industries' next big growth spurt came in the late 1970s when Prime Minister Michael Manley began promoting the buzz concept of "export or die".

Several of Jamaica's large furniture manufacturers began to focus on export, leaving space on the local market for relative newcomers like Morgan Industries.

"The big stores started to order more from us," explains Morgan. "Fortunately, we were not into export and were looking for a bigger foothold in the local market, which we got."

By the early 1980s, the overseas market had become highly competitive, sending the Jamaican firms that had ventured overseas into retreat. They started reclaiming lost business in the local market.

Morgan says he was able to retain a sizeable portion but not all of the market he now had.

"The retailers needed reliability to do business with you," he says. "I was able to give them the stability they were looking for. The big exporters, therefore, only got back a portion of the business because I did a good job in their absence."
At the height of this enterprise, some 200 workers were employed by the furniture manufacturer in 12,000 square feet of factory space.

By then the mattress manufacturing company operated by Morgan's brother was relocated to the Nanse Pen factory.
Morgan says he was able to maintain high productivity levels by creating an incentive-based remuneration for workers.
Additionally, the company invested in "a massive in-house training programme".

He explains: "We had to tell the workers what they were capable of achieving - that they could turn out 150 pieces per week. This high level of productivity was shocking to a lot of people in the business."

The next phase of development came in 1977/78 when Morgan Industries went into the export market - USA, Trinidad, Cayman, and Barbados. The initial push came from a trade show in Jamaica that was visited by international buyers.

"They were impressed with what was on show," says Morgan. "At the height we were exporting as much as 50 per cent of production. We could not make amoire fast enough for our US customers. There was significant demand for living room suites in the Caribbean."

But Morgan Industries, like the others before it, had to pull back from the US market because of difficulty of collecting payments. In one instance, a store that ordered US$35,000 worth of amoire just disappeared without a trace.

By the 1980s, other forces within the region began to operate against exporters like Morgan Industries.

Those markets - Trinidad and Barbados in particular - began to develop a sense of nationalism that benefited their local producers.

The writing was on the wall.
"Each time I visited these countries they were making two more items that I normally supplied them with," says Morgan. "Their philosophy was that the people in Barbados and Trinidad needed work so the stores had to support their own local workers."

Morgan finally threw in the towel when over a 12-month period of visiting the islands, he returned to Jamaica with "not a single order".

Again, this introspective businessman saw a lesson in this experience for Jamaica.

"I respected them for what they did," he says. "What was more important to them is that their people had work because they knew that those same people would spend back the money in their own country. I was forced out of those markets in a very technical and strategic way and ended having to respect them for their approach to their own development. The government gave the incentives, which we failed to do. We never learned that message, and before you know it they were producing high-quality stuff."

Morgan says that a convergence of factors sent him into a full scale retreat from the furniture market in the early 1990s.
"The furniture market found imported built-up board more convenient than natural wood with all big retailers buying it because of the smooth and beautiful finish," he explains.
Morgan adds: "However, it was not the imports that hurt us. It was the fact that the competitors were now pulling away our workers. They were moving at such a rapid pace that we could not train replacement workmen fast enough."

A decade before the retreat from the furniture market, Morgan, along with two friends and business partners - Cliff Cameron and Ronald Brown - had acquired a plastic company called Plastic Products that was in receivership. Each partner invested $75,000 in the venture.

Having won the bid (they paid $1.25 million), they discovered that the stock of chemicals alone was worth the sale price of the factory.

"We started production and were able to pay back our personal investments within three to four months," he beams.
The foams produced by the factory were used in bedding material.

Again, Morgan's friend, Brown, who held the Caribbean franchise for Ther-A-Pedic, was instrumental in getting Morgan into this bed-manufacturing business in 1987.
The state-owned Factories Corporation of Jamaica provided the factory space at Naggo Head for this new venture.
Under the licensing arrangement, the local partners sent the floor space to Ther-A-Pedic where the full design was undertaken.

Morgan says that towards the end of the 1980s he bought out the two partners in the companies.
In 2002, Morgan formed a partnership with Korean investors to start a polyethylene foam manufacturer called Jumbolon Jamaica Ltd.

Today, the Morgans Group owns and occupies in excess of 100,000 square feet of factory and office space on over 200,000 square feet of land.

Morgan estimates asset value at over $1 billion with annual sales of close to $400 million.
"Our sales in 1974 was about $1.25 million and this has grown by approximately 350 times - by the end of December 2006," he says.

The projection is for sales to reach $1 billion by 2012.
"Our growth potential is good, but because this sector is much ignored by the authorities we rely mainly on energising our growth requirements from re-injection of income/profit and support this with limited borrowing," he says.

Morgan says that NCB "deserves much credit for their wonderful support over the years and the EX-IM Bank of Jamaica has been exceptional".

He adds: "We love manufacturing, but plan to diversify into other sectors of business where we believe we can afford to be more aggressive."

Over the years, the Morgans Group has plowed back tens of millions of dollars of profit into upgrading the factories.

In this vertically integrated group, raw material produced at one factory travels upward to become major components in finished goods.

"Everything is manufactured here," says Morgan.
The company has also been able to land plum customers in recent times.

For example, it supplied all beds and bedding material for the 400-room Riu Hotel in Negril a few years ago. It also won the contract to supply the 750-room Bahia Principe hotel in St Ann.

The company is now supplying Half Moon Hotel with exclusive custom-built luxury beds called Half Moon Memories.

Yet, Morgan is convinced that ultimately, the real strength of the group is its willingness and capacity to constantly reinvent itself to keep ahead of market taste. For example, he points to the new mattresses now being produced by his company using memory foams.

"It is our own formulation," he beams. "It is called visco elastic memory foam. It was designed for NASA's space programme. It's the most modern technology in the market. We started two months ago in keeping with our focus of staying current and to be seen as innovators."

Other recent offerings include adjustable massage beds - with full wireless remote, and a new air bed with independent bladders for independent adjustment of firmness - all geared towards the top end of the market.

The push for export is also an ongoing effort with overseas markets now accounting for 20 per cent of sales - markets ranging from North America to the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the US Virgin Islands.

This journey for Morgan has not all been about business. Up until December 2006, he was, for 13 consecutive years, president of Tennis Jamaica. In this capacity, Morgan was vital to the rapid growth and expansion of tennis programmes throughout Jamaica's schools.

In 1991/92, he became the first recipient of the BBA award from CAST - an award that is given to graduates who have excelled in business.

Feeding the multitude

DANGEROUS PETS

Pepper Pot