Today we started a new series in our meetings by having members introduce themselves to the club.
President John Edwards
John started the introduction ball rolling by telling us about his history. Here is the Coles notes version:
Born in Barbados and graduated from high school in 1966 was known as “Inches” as he could not qualify for the basketball team, (A height deficit). Despite that, he was a leader in school becoming a monitor, prefect and Head Boy and president of the students’ union. John was the student that first reported to the headmaster that president Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.
John left Barbados to go to nursing school in England where he earned two nursing diplomas.. In 1974 John and thousands of other UK trained nurses were recruited by the British Columbia Government to fill a chronic nursing shortage in BC where he worked as a psychiatric nurse at Riverview Hospital resigning 1n 1978.
John’s goal was to start a career in the pharmaceutical industry and in 1978 he went to work for Merck and other pharmaceutical companies retiring in 2012. John held several management positions in the industry including Western Regional Manager, National Director, for Government and External Relations and Business Unit Director for Quebec and the four Atlantic Provinces based in Montreal.
He then switched his talents to promoting synchronized clock systems in the healthcare, educational, law enforcement, government and a cross section of the business markets on a global scale. While in the position of Senior Director-Global Healthcare Solutions, John authored several articles which were published in healthcare engineering journals in twenty-two countries including Canada, the USA, UK and Australia (I understand it will be a new century before he uses up his stock of Air Miles and he is a member of the Aeroplan/Air Canada 1Million Mile Club).
John dabbled in federal and local politics running for Mayor to further health care solutions for the residents of Surrey. In 1983 he contested the nomination to run federally in the former Mission-Port Moody riding.
He currently manages a small Medical facility in Surrey and does some humanitarian work in the Caribbean. He is also completing an online degree at Douglas College. John Joined Rotary on June 29, 2010 in the Classification Healthcare-equipment. He is a double Paul Harris Fellow and now on 3rd term as President. In 2013, he chaired a committee to bring Rick King, one of Rotary’s International Past Presidents and international speaker to Surrey in July 2013. In 2016-2017, he served on the district membership committee and was the District Governor’s Representative and Membership Co-Chair for the Canadian clubs.