Searchlight Business takes a close up look at George Howard, Owner of Howard’s Driving School.

George Howard – Owner of Howard’s Driving School

In this issue of Searchlight Business we feature this country’s largest telephone card distributor and national lottery salesperson George Howard, who also is the proprietor of Howard’s Driving School. Howard has been tutoring for over 40 years here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Q: Are you living your professional dream?{{more}}

A: Yes, I am living my professional dream. All my life I have always wanted to do this. I started out with one fowl, then the late Cyril Roberts got me involved in the tutoring business some 40 years ago. He used to bring people for me to teach to drive.

One of the first persons I taught to drive was the musician Shake Keane, then after assessing the business climate here I decided to branch off into the card business.

Q: What do you do to relax?

A: I do a lot of resting now, but in my earlier days teaching people to drive and seeing about my animals was my form of relaxation.

Q: How do your spend your weekends?

A: On a Saturday my wife Norma and I sit down on the porch at home and eat breadfruit and salt fish. We speak about the past, we reminisce on the good old days. We do that every Saturday, and on Sundays we spend the day at the Baha’i Church.

Q: What is your favourite meal?

A: My favourite meal is rice, pigtail and salt fish; the doctor said I must not eat it, but I really like it a lot. That really tastes good in my mouth.

Q: What challenges you most in life?

A: My biggest challenge is really people, you don’t get much cooperation from people, not a lot of people are helpful these days.

Q: What is the most enjoyable aspect of your life?

A: Teaching people to drive has always been a joy for me. Any good teacher would like to see his students’ progress, I take joy in doing that.

Q: Where do you get inspiration to go on?

A: I always like to keep going. I recall when I was a little boy from age three I would get up at nine in the morning and sweep the yard. So from that age I always had the drive to go on.

Q: Who has had the most positive influence on your life?

A: I have three people in mind, Winnie Austin, Edna Austin and Estella Austin; I grew up with them and they have had that influence on me.

Q: If you were given the power to change one thing in the country or the world, what would it be?

A: If I was to change one thing in the world I would advise people to accept Bahá’u’lláh as the manifestation of God for today. And we would have a better world.

Q: Where do you see yourself in the next 5-10 years?

A: I may not be on earth, but if I am, I would like to see my children take over the business and the workers who are here to get the benefit, as they would have worked hard to help build this business.