WHEN KEITH JONES tells you, “I am self-made,” it is not a boast, but an admission.
The success of the 79-year-old businessman at the helm of Keith Jones Funeral Service and Jones Garage & Rent-A-Car Limited on Passage Road, St Michael, is an example to young people who may have eyes set on building businesses. It is evidence and an example of what can be achieved through hard work and determination.
Jones holds no MBA (Master of Business Administration) from any institution of higher learning. Rather, his foundation at St Leonard’s Boys’ School gave him the sound educational base and confidence that motivated him to set up a modest auto body repair shop at his mother’s Carrington Village, St Michael home when he was just 18.
Today he may be regarded as an MA – a master of the art of business.
Amidst fierce competition, the Keith Jones Funeral Home banner flies high and stands out in a small island where the funeral service pie has to be shared by so many. There are over 39 listings in the telephone directory and funeral directors are said to number 70 or more.
“I am not an embalmer. I am a funeral director,” Jones pointed out. The distinction is between handling corpses and working with the living to make arrangements for the funeral of the departed.
Jones said the basics of yesterday still applied but, like everything else, the North American influence has forced more modern techniques to be employed in the funeral business. What’s more, clients are demanding more of the showy trappings that make a funeral a social talking point and an event far beyond a simple burial.
The young Jones got his toe in the door of the funeral business back when he was repairing funeral coaches for the established funeral homes like Belmont and St Hill.
Though his work was focused primarily on body and fender repair of funeral coaches for those two funeral homes, it also opened his eyes to possibilities.
“It is from that time that I picked up the pieces working around them (the two funeral homes) back in 1969,” Jones recalled. He had just returned from his lunch break.
It took no time for him to settle down and immediately the memories of his long career in business began to flow. His thoughts drifted back to the days he was involved with R.L. Hutson Funeral Home, which he subsequently purchased with another veteran, St Clair “Sonny” Harper. They relocated the funeral home to Hindsbury Road and in 1972 Jones launched out on his own.
“One of the big challenges was to make a name for yourself, get your name out there and keep customers,” he said.
His robust personality was a positive factor, but the businesses he had already established in body and fender repairs, painting cars, car rentals and the wrecker services positioned him well to be known by a lot of people. This translated to business from customers patronising these entities when time came to select a funeral home in moments of bereavement.
In 1960 when he started a car rental business, a new car cost about $3 500 and Jones owned four. That number soon increased to 12 after Barbados’ most prestigious hotel of the day was built and car rental services were in demand. Today Jones Garage & Rent-A-Car Limited has a fleet of 46 vehicles for hire.
How did he do it all?
“It was me alone,” replied the portly septuagenarian, “but afterwards I got support from staff that I brought on.”
He gives special credit to the contribution of his wife Patricia, who came on board when the two got married in 1972.
Nowadays, he goes to the office only five days of the seven-day, 24-hour business operation because he is confident about his staff’s reliability and their competence to manage the businesses’ affairs.
Callers might hear his voice at the other end when they call Keith Jones Funeral Home, but they are hardly likely to see this funeral director in his funeral regalia leading a funeral procession.
“I don’t do much of that anymore. They may see me sitting in the back of the church sometimes,” Jones said. He leaves a lot of this aspect of the work in the capable hands of his two funeral directors.
If there is any regret, it is that none of his three sons has chosen to follow in his footsteps.
“I would have loved one to be here with me,” but they all live overseas.
However, he has vowed that the businesses he worked so hard to build will not die with him.
“They will continue,” he said with a confidence that suggested he had already put a succession plan in place. He confirmed that he had.
Between 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. you will most likely find him in the office, taking phone calls, and chatting with customers as they come and go. After taking a lunch break he returns about 4 p.m. and finally leaves for home around 7 p.m.
Saturday is his free day and Sunday is church. He was once an altar server and a Sunday School teacher at All Souls Anglican Church. The move to St Leonard’s Anglican, where he served as a church warden for 47 years, was made when that church got its first black priest.
This is another vital part of his life and St Leonard’s acknowledged his contribution recently, declaring him church warden emeritus, the first in an Anglican church here.
In 2000 he was awarded a Centennial Honour, and organisations like Cancer Support Services have shown their appreciation for his civic commitment.
At the height of the Crop Over season when the services offered by Keith Jones Garage would naturally be in big demand, the man behind the sprawling complex of businesses that bear his name is cool as a cucumber. It is clear he has stepped back.
“I don’t do that strenuous work anymore,” he said.
It does not mean the work stops, however. Others trained by him ably keep the 24-hour operation going.
His legacy as a self-made man will be there long after he is gone.