WE NOTE with regret the passing of Dr. George Phillip, who died in Kingston on Saturday night from prostate cancer, aged 69.

Dr. Phillip was born in Grenada and grew up in Trinidad. But it was in Jamaica, where he lived for well over three decades, that he made his fullest contribution - a fact acknowledged in the outpouring of sadness at his passing, and the warm remembrances of him by people of all strata of Jamaican society.

Indeed, Dr. Phillip was widely known for his expertise in industrial relations, a field in which he leveraged theoretical knowledge and a warm, engaging personality to great effect and with significant success. There was in him a rare ability to bring people together and to argue vigorously, but end without bitterness or hubris.

These were strengths that not only helped to propel him, twice, to the presidency of the Jamaica Employers' Federation, but served him well on the boards of the several companies on which sat, as a member of the public service and police service commissions, and in the various inquiries in which he was asked to participate. By nature and inclination, George Phillip was a regionalist, understanding that the region as a whole was greater than the sum of its individual parts. He played a key role in facilitating the cross-border movements of a number of Caribbean firms, including Jamaican ones, that sought to set up elsewhere in the region.

As for visible entities and substantial landmarks, George Phillip will be long remembered in the establishment and growth of the Jamaica Observer newspaper. Having brokered the Lindsay-Stewart partnership that resulted in the launch of the paper, he became the Observer's second managing director months after its publication, at a time when the paper appeared in danger of foundering. He served in the post for seven years.

The personality traits that made George Phillip so affable in the boardroom were magnified in a social setting. He loved a good fte, loved sport, had a sense of humour, and was enduringly positive even in the darkest and most dire of circumstances.

Perhaps George Phillip's biggest contribution was in being a decent human being who did more than his bit to make the world a little better than he found it. And that, more than likely, would be remembrance enough for him.