Meet Terry Robinson

Terrence (Terry) Robinson celebrates 45 years as a dedicated member of The Rotary Club of St. Thomas. His service in the Club is filled with achievements and we have all certainly benefitted.

There was a thread between the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts and St. Thomas. That thread was Professor Reginald Isaacs, a professor at Harvard and a consultant to V.I. Governor Ralph Paiewonsky. He put together a team to build a new town in the central area of St. Croix for government offices, services, private industry and all other services required for a new development. The towns of Christiansted and Frederiksted were to be restored to their original historic character and would be basically for tourism and retail and private businesses. Terry and his wife Suzanne were a part of the team selected for this exciting new venture and they came down in June, 1966.

Upon arriving on St. Thomas, they realized that they knew absolutely no one. They joined All Saints Cathedral Church on Garden Street, Toastmasters, and The Rotary Club of St. Thomas. In deciding whether to join Rotary, Terry investigated other service organizations. However, Rotary offered fellowship, a variety of options for community service, and a special bond between members. He was inducted in September, 1970.

From the very beginning, Terry was involved in the Club’s Scholarship Program, which was started by Rotarian Al Brown. Terry profoundly believed that it was imperative that our Club educate V.I. youth so they could become productive citizens.

Terry served as a director and officer on The Rotary Club of St. Thomas Foundation, Inc. for many years and is currently the President of that Foundation. The goal of the Board and members is to have a $1,000,000 corpus within the foreseeable future so that we could fund a number of scholarships and other projects, i.e. Boys and Girls Club.

Terry was instrumental in having our Rotary Club of St. Thomas Foundation apply for and receive 501(c)(3) tax status from IRS which enables EDC corporations and private individuals to make financial contributions to the Foundation and receive tax credits. Since then, our first major donor was Soraya Coffelt who made a $25,000 contribution to set up the Gordon L. Coffelt Scholarship Fund.

Terry served as President of The Rotary Club of St. Thomas from 2005 to 2006. During his presidency, he found a new home for the Club to have its lunch meetings - Room With A View at Bluebeard’s Castle Hotel. This year is our 10th year there.

Another achievement as President was the creation of a new President’s Collar with a bar for each president with the corresponding year of service. This was completed and ready for the swearing in of the 2006-2007 President. In anticipation of attending the 100th Anniversary Convention of Rotary in Chicago, Terry also designed and had made our own Virgin Islands/Rotary pin.

During her presidency, Sue Boland charged Terry, Larry Benjamin and Jim Tunick with compiling the 57 year history of the Club. It was a daunting task, but at the end of June, 2013, they presented her with a DVD representing the highlights of 57 years of the Club. The last segment was on the Inner Wheel Club of St. Thomas. All members of the Club and Inner Wheel were presented with a personal copy of the DVD. It was the suggestion of the Committee to have each following president prepare a one-year DVD update for his/her year. The reason that this project took on such significance was that one of the Club’s former Secretaries, Emily Plantz, had her home burn to the ground along with all of our Rotary documents.

Terry is a multiple Paul Harris Fellow and a member of the Paul Harris Society.