Sharon Drew has seen it all at the SWMC. She is a stalwart at the corporation having been there from the very start; even when the SWMC was just a project and not yet a corporation. The solid waste project was part of a wider project with the rest of the OECS and Sharon at the time was involved in the communication and administration which were vital to the project on a sub-regional and international level. “I was the person who was the hub of that communication because at that time it was just finance officer, myself and Mr. Bridgewater and the office attendant. My role and function was any communication or all communication to the partners. It had to be very specific and on time,” Sharon recalls.

Now that she has clocked 20 years with the SWMC, Sharon looks back and is pleased with the accomplishment of the Corporation. “It gives me a good feeling in that there was more or less nothing organized when it comes to garbage and then this body came into being. It moved from stage to stage and right now we are at a good level where things are more organized,” Sharon says.

Like her colleague Sandra Caines who has also been with the corporation since the inception, Sharon recalls the days when the SWMC just had four employees: she, General Manager Alphonso Bridgewater, Gillian Crooke and Caines. “Now we have close to 100 persons working; it’s not so easy (to socialize). She says. “But in the office, we still try to encourage that camaraderie so you find at lunch time we all gather in the kitchen as one and everybody share what we have to eat.”

It was not all honky dory for Sharon. There were days she felt like quitting. “Sometimes when I get angry I would say, ‘you know what I am going to leave this place because I think I am here long enough and I think it’s my time to leave.’ But even though I may say that, I have managed to (stay),” she says. “Everybody understands each other and they understand me.”

As the future rolls on, Sharon hopes the corporation will continue the camaraderie. She also has some goals in mind that she hopes the SWMC will accomplish. “I would like to see roles become more specific with a job description….and policies,” she says. “I would really like to see where we upgrade to categorizing waste and really move at a level like the bigger countries,” she adds.