Fenrick R. De Four – A Tribute   Back

Delivered by Eng. Hollis Charles, Chairman, Board of Engineering of Trinidad and Tobago, at the APETT Annual Banquet and Award Ceremony, September 18, 2004
at which Eng. Fenrick De Four was posthumously honoured.

The English author Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem in praise of teachers in the British public schools who prepared the young men who went out to build the British Empire. In his poem Kipling wrote, “so let us praise these famous men, men of little showing, for their work continueth and their work continueth far beyond their knowing”.

Engineer Fenrick Rudolph De Four was such a famous man. The work that Fenrick did on engineering codes and standards improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Trinidad and Tobago and in the Caribbean. The majority of those people never heard of De Four. Their future lives are going to be poorer because of his death and they won’t know it!

For almost half a century there was almost nothing happening in the profession of engineering in Trinidad and Tobago that did not involve Fenrick De Four. He was a founding member, president and fellow of APETT, the first Secretary-General of the Council of Caribbean Engineering Organizations, the first Chairman of the Board of Engineering of Trinidad and Tobago, President of the Association of Consulting Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago, Chairman of Textel, Chairman of Telco. He was a Commissioner of the Public Transport Service Corporation and the Public Utilities Commission. He founded and was Chairman and Managing Director of ADeB Consultants Limited. He served on several national commissions on engineering matters and on innumerable committees to review or establish engineering codes and standards. He was the main author of the draft model legislation for the reciprocal registration of engineers in the Caricom region.

All that was in engineering, Fenrick was equally prolific in his service to the community. He gave of his engineering and management skills to assist his church and the community. He was a long-standing member of Opus Dei, St. Vincent de Pail and worked with Servol. He was active in the development of Toco.

I can personally attest to the very many – mainly elderly people, who queued up to visit him on afternoons – for advice and even financial assistance. When at the Board of Engineering, we began trying to replace Fenrick on the committees on which he represented the Board, it took about a dozen individuals to do so. David Bartholomew tells me that at ADeB where Fenrick was officially on retirement, they have had to create a whole new department to handle the activities in which Fenrick was engaged!

Over and above the prodigious work was the personality of the man; quite strength, conviction and compassion are the words which come to my mind when I think to describe Fenrick. A sense of humour characterized by a quiet chuckle, an achiever who must have in his life time made quite a few feminine hearts beat faster, but always a man of compassion. Compassion, which is the hallmark of the truly strong, Fenrick had the willingness and more importantly, the ability to understand and forgive the shortcomings of others.

Such were the qualities and the life of Fenrick De Four embodying the total concept of the title ”Engineer”. Those who carry a similar title need to reflect on those qualities and on that life, for those, who might, even on APETT’s Council, aspire to fill Fenrick’s shoes, I say consider well the life of this “Engineer” before climbing onto your ambition!

The Government of the day has seen it fit to recognize the work of Fenrick De Four with a national award and the many organizations with which he was associated have honoured or are planning to honour his memory. On behalf of all these organizations, I want tonight to thank his dear wife Phyllis and his family for the time he took from them to give to us. We thank you most sincerely.

Fenrick’s greatest memorial however and his monumental legacy to us all are his myriad contributions to Trinidad and Tobago and to the wider Caribbean. That unsung work of his which continues and continues – far beyond our knowing.