JOHN STAMP 29 years old, had humble beginnings. He spent his early years in Mountain View where his family had a small grocery shop, the profits from which sent the children to school.
Robberies, escalation of the crime rate, and threats forced the family to migrate in 1975 to Braeton, Portmore, where they had got a house through the National Housing Trust. Back in those days, John remembers, two or three transit buses (as they were called) could carry all the people who lived in Portmore from there to Kingston.
Back in those days as well, he remembers his bed, for a long time was the concrete floor (padded with cardboard and old clothes) in a two-bedroom house which was shared with 11 other people. Dinner was turned cornmeal on weekdays with coconut milk added on Sundays or 'nutri" bun and cheese on rare occasions.
But looking back, John says "I never really felt poor because our father never made us feel poor. He always said you are better than a lot of other people. As long as the family was together, we never really felt like we were poor because we were always there for each other."
After Common Entrance exams in 1983 John went on to Wolmer's High School from Dunrobin Primary but not before the family had moved a second time - this time to St. Thomas, where his father did some farming and again opened a grocery shop and bar.
Robbery and theft forced the family to move back to Portmore to try and pick life up from where they had left off. The high school experience for John was not as productive as he would have liked and he gained only three subjects in the CXC exams at the end of five years.
"My parents never visited my school during the time I attended Wolmer's", he recalls, though not regretfully, "as they themselves had not got much education. My mother came to school on orientation day and that was about it, and my father thought that all that was important was to go to school every day as long as you weren't sick.
Another thing he would stress was the importance of being street-smart and using your discretion." Not sure what to do after high school, John's parents got him enrolled in the North Street branch of EXED community college (which no longer exists) but John had already decided on another course of action.
He was one of the youngest workers there and held the job as department assistant (search clerk) for about 6 months before he was promoted to payroll officer. After one and a half years at the Titles office, John again felt the urge to move on, this time it was to Myers, Fletcher, and Gordon (MFG) where he worked as a services clerk (John thought the guys who use to visit Titles office from MFG and do searches were bearers, so that's the job he actually applied for).
His dream
But he had not yet realised his dream, and the job at MFG did not allow much scope for growth in the direction that John wanted to go. It was therefore on to the Urban Development Corporation where he was to take up the position of Information Systems Officer.
The challenge here is that John was to work with Microsoft NT, a networking system that he knew very little about, as he was an ardent "Novell man".
What drives this young hardworking husband and father of two? An intense desire to succeed; a consciousness that he, "in spite of himself," has been blessed; a feeling that he does not deserve "all this" and the resultant desire to give to those around him who are in need.
He further adds, "I grew up not understanding why my father was so strict on us, but now I see the fruits of his labour and the sacrifices he made for us in myself and my brother and sister who are also doing very well in their careers."
But overcoming challenges is an art which John had essentially mastered. In fact, he declares, "If I set out to do something I never think that it will not work. All I can see is how it is going to work. It was only after a few things started to fail that I started, as a matter of principle, to look at both sides of the tasks which I take on. Needless to say, John read everything he could find on Microsoft NT and eventually, with the help of the new Information Systems Manager, learnt the networking system to the extent that he successfully networked all the UDC offices in Kingston, Montego Bay, Runaway Bay and Ocho Rios. He has also acted as IS Manager and played a pivotal role in converting a single server outdated environment into a much respected multiple server IT Department.
