AS a teenager, while most children were thinking about exams and weekend football, Cevon Williston was already helping to provide for his family.

Raised by a single mother and responsible for supporting his sisters who depended on him financially, he began assisting with lumber purchasing and transport at Collings Wood Products in 1994, a small workshop that would later become Woodcats International Ltd. Today, 31 years later, Williston serves as the lumber yard production supervisor, carrying forward the values forged in those early years of responsibility, persistence, and integrity, which continue to shape his leadership and commitment to the company.

“My parents separated when I was young, so I grew up with my mother and my sisters. My mother previously depended on my father for a living, and when they separated, because I loved my mother so much, I couldn’t stand to see her struggle with the kids. So I started working early, and whatever I earned, I brought home,” Williston recalled.

“I paid for my own uniform, my books, my bag, my shoes. I even paid my school fees. I didn’t want my mother to struggle with it. I also made sure my sisters got the things they needed to go from primary school to college, even though I didn’t get a chance to complete my education.”

Williston came into the job through the company’s founder, Christopher Collings, whom he knew from the Kingdom Hall.

“I used to buy the lumber, transport the lumber in the morning, then go back in the evening for more,” he recalled. The work was demanding, but he accepted it as part of the responsibility he carried. “It was hard, but it never felt hard to me. When you know you have to do something, you just do it.”

What began as a practical decision at home quickly became a long-term relationship with the business. Inside the workshop, he was never the type to wait to be picked. When an opportunity appeared, he stepped toward it.

“If the boss said he needed somebody to operate a machine, I was the first to say, ‘I can do that’,” he said. That attitude shaped his early years. Soon, the teenager who entered as a lumber runner was moving across the production floor, learning each piece of equipment, each technique, and each measurement. Before long, he moved up the ladder to more senior roles and became the person new team members learned from.

Today, he is the lumber yard production supervisor, a position he holds not because it was handed to him, but because he earned every rung on the ladder. Much of his impact now lives in the people he trained, mentored and helped to grow.

Williston credits his upbringing for his consistency and longevity at Woodcats; and he credits his value for honesty. “

Honesty is the first thing anywhere you go,” he said. “Most people get fired because they take things. That was never something I struggled with because I grew up in a Christian family, and those lessons stayed with me.”

He drilled these lessons into his son, now working at King Alarm; his adopted daughter, and every young man he mentored on the site. For Williston, integrity is not just a personal value; it is a legacy shared through leadership, example, and service.

In 2018, Williston’s managers recognised his contribution to the company, presenting him with the company’s inaugural Worker of the Year award. He says Woodcats has become less like a workplace and more like a second home to him. “If the management wasn’t good, I wouldn’t have been here so long,” he chuckled. “It’s a very good place to work, and the management team, you can talk to them about anything. If they can help you, they help you. My whole life is here. It feels like family.”

Asked what guidance he would give to young people who feel unsure of their direction because of the cards life has dealt them, he returned to the principles that shaped him.

“Be honest, be dedicated, and be hardworking,” he said. “Don’t wait for people to force you to do the right thing. You have to choose it yourself.”

Now, three decades after he first stepped onto the property, Williston’s journey is woven into the history of the company. His story is not loud, but it is powerful. It’s a reminder that greatness often grows quietly, from the hands of people who simply show up, day after day, and give their all.