AT 18 years old, Sherwin Brown walked into Foote Prints on the Sands hotel in Negril and asked for a job as a waiter. There were no openings in that department so instead, he was hired to care for the grounds of the property.

For almost 30 years he worked his way up in the family run resort, nestled on Negril’s Seven Mile Beach. Earlier this year, Brown was named operations manager at what is now a refurbished luxury boutique hotel, Footeprints Negril. It’s a “big picture” job that means solving problems, empowering staff, and making sure everything runs smoothly so guests can have the best possible experience.

Among Brown’s direct reports are the hotel’s groundsmen.

His advice to them: “You’re a groundsman now but it’s not necessarily where you’re going to be for all your life. You should decide where you want to go. Learn what you can learn here, but use that to push yourself further.”

He’s living proof of that.

Brown, who is from humble beginnings, grew up in Old Harbour, St Catherine. He was enthralled by a schoolmate from Ocho Rios who always had “a lot of free stuff” because his parents worked at a hotel.

“I said, ‘Okay, I want to work in a hotel’,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer with a chuckle as he recalled how he became interested in a career in tourism.

He was fascinated with the idea of being a waiter; he liked the look of the crisp, white shirt and black pants, and he loved the idea of being able to meet different people every day.

He took his first step toward realising that dream the summer he graduated from Old Harbour High. Fully aware his mother could not afford to kit him out for the graduation ceremony, he decided to leave town.

“I wanted an excuse to give to my friends for not attending the graduation, so I came to stay with my granduncle. I told them I’m going away for the summer, but it was just an excuse to not attend graduation. I didn’t want to say that I can’t afford to go,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.

His granduncle lived in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, and one of his church sisters worked at the then Foote Prints on the Sands in the parish. Brown asked her if there were any available jobs at the hotel and though she said she doubted there were any openings, she encouraged him to stop by the property and ask.

In August 1996, when the then manager told Brown the only job available was being a groundsman, he initially turned down the opportunity because he was “not sure” he could “do that”.

“I remember telling her, ‘Thanks,’ and left. But by the time I reached the hotel gate I turned back and I said to her, ‘I will accept that job with the possibility of eventually getting a promotion.’ She said, ‘No, we’re a small property, and we don’t give promotion.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll be the first person to get that,’ and that’s how I actually stepped into my first-ever job,” Brown recounted.

The then groundsman trained him on the job, and Brown focused on being the best worker he could be. As the newbie, he was given the unpopular task of washing out the garbage house.

“After a time, I stopped waiting on him to tell me that it should be washed out. I ensured that I washed it out! I take pride in everything that I do,” he stressed.

But he never lost focus on his dream of being a waiter. After his shift ended at 5:00 pm, he would hang around for five more hours, doing odd jobs for the dining room staff. He learned how to set the table by looking at how the cutlery and plates were positioned as he cleared the dining area.

From time to time he would raise the issue of a transfer with Audrey Foote who, in her capacity as general manager, ran the hotel with other family members. Though happy with his work as a groundsman and the magic he was working with her flowers, Audrey was initially reluctant. Then about a year after he joined the hotel she gave the okay for Brown to take one important step forward.

“I just kept bothering her, and bothering her, and bothering her. I remember specifically she said, ‘Okay, go and let them teach you how to make coffee.’ They used to live on property at the time, so the wait staff used to bring their coffee to them in the morning. That was my training, to actually make the coffee and bring it to them,” said Brown.

He was then sent for formal training, and that has been constant with each promotion he has earned. After becoming a waiter in the dining room, he was next a server in the bar before the bartender role was added to that. His next upward move was to the store room department (stores), which issues supplies to the hotel’s various departments, as needed. After stores came a natural progression to the purchasing department. Brown then did a stint as food and beverage manager for a few years and, during that time, he would fill in at the front desk when the staff went on break.

“I never knew what was coming, but I [always] said, ‘I’m embracing this’. Eventually I was given the job of property manager,” he told the Sunday Observer.

That promotion came in 2007, a year after he got married. The wedding reception took place at the hotel.

In 2019 Foote Prints on the Sands closed its doors, hammered — like many other properties — by the restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With two children and a wife to support, Brown got a job as operations manager at another property. He was there for a year and a half, but earlier this year, when the team for the refurbished Footeprints Negril was being put together, he was asked to return. He was the only one hired from the previous team.

“I was elated, extremely happy, to have been a part of the original Foote Prints, and to now be a part of where the new Footeprints Negril is going. I see it as a huge opportunity. I always tell people: irrespective of where you are, do your job to the best of your ability. Be consistent, just be hard-working and be honest,” he said.

“The best part of my current job is being able to, at the end of the day, have a satisfied customer; to solve issues to ensure that customers are happy. I see every unknown as an opportunity to learn something new,” Brown added.

Having come up through the ranks, he appreciates all his team members.

“A lot of times the groundsmen and the housekeepers are looked down on in the hotel industry, like they are the lower class. But for me, no, they are as important as everybody else,” Brown stressed.

“I remember when I would tell persons that I was a groundsman, my then girlfriend — who is my now wife — asked me if I don’t feel any way about it. I said, ‘No, it is what brings me to where I am now and it has helped me to develop an appreciation for those persons.’”

He is also fully aware that he has been fortunate and is grateful for the opportunities he has had to learn on the job over the years, both formally and informally.

“Those training seminars that the Footes used to send me to, they would pay for me to go there to learn, empowering me to be the best that I can be. I see this as more than a job, I feel like I’m a part of it, a part of the history, because I know where the property is coming from — the vision of where it is going. I’m elated to be a part of that,” said Brown.

Footeprints Negril Operations Manager Sherwin Brown on the job at the newly renovated property. (Photo: Charmaine N Clarke)