There are some moments in life when people ask: Where were you? For Jean Lowrie-Chin, founder and executive chairman of Pro Comm, Pro Comm Developments, and the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons (CCRP), most of those moments were created by her and her team.

An affable woman, Lowrie-Chin’s enthusiasm for public relations is only exceeded by the work she has done over the last 44 years in which she has been managing Pro Comm. But her journey to being one of the country’s best public relations entrepreneur could have easily been usurped by another profession.

“Well, my field was journalism,” Lowrie-Chin stated in the interview for this feature. “And then when I got married, and the hours were so terrible, as you would imagine, that I decided to switch to teaching. But, and I always tell people, you know, when you’re leaving a job leave in a blaze of glory. So I had to do an interview with Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the poet from Barbados who had made Jamaica his home. And, of course, I was a student of literature at UWI [The University of the West Indies]. So I really, really enjoyed the interview. I put my all into it and left after that to go on vacation and then to teach at Calabar, teaching English and drama,” she said.

Lowrie-Chin said in those years sports broadcaster Patrick Anderson was among her students, and while she worked as a journalist, she reviewed theatre for the Daily News and that article was remembered by Wycliffe Bennett, a mentor who called her when Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere was to visit Jamaica in 1974. Braithwaite, who was impressed with the article, called and told her he wanted her to do the public relations (PR) work for the visit.

“I told him I had a job and he said, ‘No problem’, I will send a car for you.” Lowrie-Chin said she worked with Braithwaite on a spectacular show, which didn’t get off the ground because it rained.

The next year, for Carifesta, she was offered the job to do PR for that event as well, then after that she got a role as PR manager at Dunlop Corbin, a PR firm, at the end of 1976. Lowrie-Chin was a clear fit for the job as she constantly picked up new contracts for the firm. Her boss at the time even worried how she’d manage all this new business she was bringing in. However, Lowrie-Chin was up to any challenge.

Based on her calibre of work and her experience in such a short time, others began to recognise Lowrie-Chin’s abilities and strategies. During an encounter at the Jamaica Pegasus, she was introduced to Susan Campbell, who noted how she was doing everything on her own and how she wouldn’t take orders from anyone. She asked her why she doesn’t start her own business.

At 27, Chin was given the opportunity to start a business but didn’t have any resources to get going. However, Campbell arranged a meeting for Lowrie-Chin with the general manager of Jamaica Pegasus Peter Westbrook, and she negotiated a contra deal to do PR for the hotel in exchange for space to work. This deal involved Chin providing the hotel with PR services and she’d have an office with utilities paid for as part of the arrangement. Thus, she got room 106 and had one of the best addresses in Kingston.

Thus, on November 29, 1978, Public Relations Operations (PRO) was born. Lowrie-Chin was trading at this time before she officially registered the business PRO Communications Limited on June 30, 1981.

However, when some clients at Dunlop caught a whiff that Lowrie-Chin was going out on her own, they affirmed that they were going with her. She informed them that they’d need to speak with her boss first before they could be contracted to her firm. Guinness followed Chin and signed a contract on December 14, 1978, while Racing Promotions followed after.

As the firm’s business began to grow, so did the need for office space. Lowrie-Chin rented the room next door as she had to hire new staff in her second year of operations. When it came time again to expand, she couldn’t rent any additional rooms at the Pegasus. However, when she dropped one of her co-workers at home one evening on Kingsway, she was informed of a “For Sale” sign on a building on 6 Kingsway. The owners had left Jamaica during the five-flights-a-day saga in the 1970s but had a property in that area of Kingston. Lowrie-Chin was successfully able to acquire 6 Kingsway with PRO Communications making that location its new abode.

“We were there for 34 years now. During that time we adopted a little girl. And then, in 1988, we adopted a little boy. Now I always said that Kingsway was going to be for my daughter. So when my little boy came on in 1988, same year as Gilbert, I said, you know, I need to find somewhere for my little boy. And I’m always checking real estate because we all played Monopoly as children. So we were always into this real estate thing. So I found this place up at Phoenix Avenue, which is where Pro Comm is now. And I just bought it and said I would develop it and move Pro Comm over there. But then I got very busy with a client, Lasco. And I remember at one point, they said they wanted me to actually do a beauty contest. Now, I’m a feminist, and an unapologetic feminist, so I do not do beauty contests. So I told them, ‘Sorry, I don’t do beauty contests.’ “

Lowrie-Chin said, instead, she asked: Why not celebrate our unsung heroes? With that, Lowrie-Chin created the Lasco Teacher of the Year, then the Nurse of the Year. The police awards were added later.

While Lowrie-Chin no longer does PR for Lasco, she said she created the slogan ‘Nutrition never tasted so good’ and ‘Lasco makes living affordable’, which is used by the company’s food division to this day. But it was not just for Lasco. Lowrie-Chin said with GraceKennedy she created the Household Workers of the Year award.

Recalling her promise in the 1980s, when she purchased the property at Kingsway, to go into development, Lowrie-Chin decided to do just that, but with the property at Phoenix Avenue in St Andrew. One of her former students at Calabar was to be the architect.

“I started to think about Phoenix and decided I wanted to put up a commercial complex. I went to my former student and told him I wanted a building that looks ultra-modern. That was developed and that was how Pro Comm Developments started.”

Most of those offices are rented out and Pro Comm now has its headquarters at that location.

“We still have Kingsway. It’s leased out, actually leased to ‘Bridge FM’, but we do have plans to develop Kingsway.” She said she is planning to partner with a young developer to build apartments.

But dialling back, Lowrie-Chin reflected on her time working with Digicel on its launch in 2001.

“Let me tell you the story. In September 2000 I got a call from somebody with an Irish accent, and the person said we asked about PR companies in Jamaica and we were given three names, and you are not one of them. Anyway, he said, ‘However, I went to dinner last night with an executive and he said if you do not use Pro Comm, you will be making a big mistake.’ And so they said to me, and we need your presentation within 24 hours.“

Lowrie-Chin said that man was Seamus Lynch, who was to be the first CEO of Digicel. He was parried around the media to sell the plans for a second mobile operator in Jamaica, but things weren’t going well for the launch. Lowrie-Chin said she contacted the then minister with responsibility for the telecoms sector Phillip Paulwell, who helped with the process.

In April 2001 Digicel was launched to much fanfare. This heralded a war which benefited media entities. Digicel itself surpassed its target for consumers. The company targeted 100,000 customers over a few years but achieved that in a few months.

But PR would not hold Lowrie-Chin, and on the 30th anniversary of the company, she said a decision was made to create a legacy project.

“And I looked around and I said, ‘You know the most underserved set of people in Jamaica are our seniors.’ I said let me start something for seniors. And thus CCRP, the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons, started.”

“CCRP now has over 12,000 members from all over Jamaica. We now have a television show that comes on, on a Sunday afternoon. We also have a radio show that also comes out on a Sunday afternoon. Best time for our seniors. We have all sorts of advocacy programmes and a lot of outreach. We partnered with the police officers to give out packages to the indigent elderly. And what has really sustained CCRP is Pro Comm’s marketing skill. You know, I think if we did not have the communications and marketing, we would not have come so far.”

Among the achievements of CCRP is bringing health insurance to people over the age of 60 who could not get insurance otherwise. This was provided by Sagicor Life.

That aside, Lowrie-Chin was also instrumental in starting Flair magazine in The Gleaner each Monday and has been a contributor to the Jamaica Observer for the past 20 years.

“Last year, December the fifth, was my 20th anniversary of my column in the Jamaica Observer. I love to write and it’s a sacrifice because I have so many different things doing, but I just love to write and I love to celebrate people, passion. If you notice in my column, I try as much as possible to be balanced and always try to solve to some positives because this is a great country. And I think the most important thing about Pro Comm is that we are passionately Jamaican. The other one is follow through sets us apart.

Among her many roles these days is chairing the Digicel Foundation in which the philantropic work of the telecoms company is done throughout the region and includes building schools in Haiti.