Marlene’s journey on a life of many paths

She tweezes her bougainvillea to urge luxuriant blooms and during an idle moment will sketch fashion designs on cocktail napkins. Is a Kalooki athlete on weekends; and, to her bosses is like the expert firefighter who is called on to rescue desperate operations.

General Manager of Grace Kennedy Belize, Marlene Campbell, left Titchfield school wanting to be a fashion designer and ended up being intrigued by the management of business processes. She recalls the first time that her bosses called her to save one of their failing companies.

“My peers said that I was really crazy to take the thing, but I am excited by challenges, that’s my problem. Richard Nixon says that you cannot appreciate the top of the mountain unless you have been down in the deepest valley and taken all the knocks and disappointments. I like challenges and I tend not to say no to anything,” she said.

The company was National Processors, a subsidiary of Grace, Kennedy and makers of Grace Cock soup, Fresh Start drink crystals and other products. It was 1995 and the Jamaican economy was going through a metamorphosis that resulted in increased challenges for manufacturers. Marlene, who was the Quality and Research and Development Manager at Grace Canning where she helped to develop sauces and juices, was plucked from the plant off Spanish Town Road and placed in the General Manager’s seat at the factory in Temple Hall. She recalls her first day on the job.

“I said to myself, ‘Oh my God’ then I put my mind in gear and started seeking for the things I needed to do to start building the company.”

National Processors was a company with problems, and closing it had not been ruled out. Within six months Marlene brought the revenue to a break-even position, and within a year the company made a profit and has been successful since. Six years later, they called her up on a Friday and presented another challenge. Medi Grace was floundering and she was instructed to start at the Molynes Road facility the following Monday. Again, Marlene’s results were remarkable. After one year, a 30 per cent growth was recorded, allowing the company to retain its status as distributor for international drug companies.

Marlene analysed her success as following simple rules, “Part of the problem”, she noted, “was that the morale in both places was terrible. I know how to deal with people, and I figured that if I could get the people to do the work, then the work would be done. Everybody has needs. The principals have a need for you to double and triple their sales. Your owner needs you to make more money and to have a strong cash flow. The sales reps want the products to sell so that they can have a good pay. The customer needs a product that satisfies their consumer profile. You have to try and satisfy them all”.

Marlene studied home economics at the College of Arts Science and Technology (CAST now UTech), but a summer job at the Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation (JIDC), a forerunner of the Scientific Research Council, turned her on to the science of managing a process, in this case, using food technology. Working at JIDC after graduation, she helped to develop new processed foods and later furthered her knowledge through an Organisation of the American States (OAS) fellowship at the University of Maryland, USA. She applied her knowledge of the science of food technology to the management sciences with great professional success. With her studies out of the way, Marlene focused on starting a family, but her three-year marriage left her disillusioned, and she has since committed herself thoroughly to her job.

“I did not want to have a child without a proper mother/father household and I did not feel that I had to have a child to prove to people that I was a woman,” she said.

Marlene admits that getting over a divorce was not easy, but she was determined to overcome that pain.

“I am realistic and practical. I realised that I could not make that disappointment destroy me. I told myself to get over it and move on. I have devoted my life to my work but I try to find fun in almost every single thing that I do. Each day we should learn something, give of yourself and laugh. I am about making some good memories now.”

Marlene still enjoys romance and says that her current beau lives in Africa, at a distance that seems to help the relationship along. Her bosses have moved her into new territory, to manage their operations in Belize where she will be working with a new type of customer, the supermarket trade. She is looking forward eagerly to the challenge and has been using her Kalooki network to find card partners over there.

“I can fit in anywhere,” she insists. “I accept people for who they are; and I am going to accept Belize for what it is, and I will enjoy it for what it is. I always want to do creative and challenging things, so I take the next step as the next step comes, and keep walking.”