The Kind Lauding the Kind: Butch Hendrickson and the Lyn Kee Chow Family

Butch Hendrickson – timely Lecture and Award

Excerpt from Jamaica Observer Column published 18 March 2019

Gary 'Butch' Hendrickson CD

As usual, business leader Butch Hendrickson pulled no punches in his address at last week’s UTECH 2019 Research, Technology and Innovation Day.  He appealed to our leaders to take the guesswork out of policy-making by using hard data. He appealed to students to hold persons in high office to standards of excellence, noting that “Jamaica cannot afford to be mediocre anymore”.

As this column has noted several times, Jamaica is suffering from ‘a conspiracy of mediocrity’.  People of excellence are shunned and frustrated by mediocre managers who are afraid of losing their jobs to them.  And so, the cycle of mediocrity continues, dumbing down companies who wonder how their hefty investments are taking them nowhere.

Butch Hendrickson called out the poor reasoning that results in such cases as the recurring potholes at a section of Knutsford Boulevard and a lack of strategic planning which leaves the authorities in conflict with poor market ladies and squatters for whom land should have been earmarked for their settlements.   

Hendrickson has been a man who puts his money where his mouth is, having established the National Baking Foundation, supporting over 2,000 schools islandwide, and funding countless projects for the needy.

Michael and Veronica Lyn Kee Chow

Earlier this month, he was presented with the Gift of Hope Award by Michael and Veronica Lyn Kee Chow of Pickapeppa fame. It was really a case of the kind lauding the kind, as the Lyn Kee Chows contributed the Gift of Hope Apostolate in Mandeville to Mustard Seed Communities in 2013. Gift of Hope houses 20 residents with disabilities, age two to 24.  The Lyn Kee Chow family have annual fundraisers, using proceeds for therapy equipment, building repairs, a new vehicle, sustainable agriculture initiatives and care of the residents.

So great was the response of Butch Hendrickson that the Lyn Kee Chows wrote: “Your years of philanthropic giving, extensive work meeting the needs of vulnerable populations, and dedication to religious communities in Jamaica has benefited countless individuals across the island and beyond….Please know that your generosity has enabled the Gift of Hope fundraiser to grow and provide much-needed funding both for the home and the residents who it serves.”