Henley Morgan still chooses Trench Town

Briefly, Dr Henley Morgan spreads his arms wide as he states his preference for the full address of his business at 85 West Road in Kingston 12. He said that because of the "divide and rule", some people say Arnett Gardens, "but I prefer to call it Trench Town ... Greater Trench Town. That's the brand, so everybody needs to come under this one umbrella".

Morgan's business relocation from the high rise offices of New Kingston to Trench Town is exhaustively documented. How-ever, when Morgan says, "first of all, I am not from Trench Town. I have no family roots here", makes the move even more striking. The initial connection came through his father, Rev Dr Cyril Morgan, who Henley describes as "a pastor/politician of some repute". The Baptist pastor was once member of parliament for what was then South-Eastern St James, and the national convention of churches had "a little branch in Trench Town".

As a child, Henley would visit Trench Town on the strength of this connection and then, after spending 22 years in the USA, started attending church in the community.

It would not stay that way forever as, "about seven years ago or thereabout, I think it is a matter of some public interest that I decided, when just about at the top of my consulting career to make this. I guess you could call it suicidal, certainly for career, move in terms of relocating to Trench Town".

Going against the grain, it seems, is encoded in Henley Morgan's make-up. His father built the Maldon Baptist Cathedral in St James, had a high school and "a lot of innovations".

"I was born under those circumstances and so I had the blood of a nonconformist, a change agent, I would even say the blood of a revolutionary, in my veins," said Morgan.

Pastor's pickney

Morgan laughs as he talks about his rural childhood, "being a pastor's pickney and having the early reputation of being bad". Still, he points out "in those days bad is considered good today".

The 'bad' continued to the secondary level at Ardenne High School. "People tell me I must have been an outstanding student. That's not exactly true. I was a student who stood out and part of the reason I stood out had to do with my distinguishing myself by a lack of academic prowess. At one time people would tease me and say I had the most repeats between forms two and five," he said.

In a dramatic turnaround, Morgan said "as God would have it, things have changed and I became the first inductee into the Ardenne Alumni Hall of Fame and here I am today".

He counts his father and mother, Louise Morgan, opposite in temperament with the pastor/politician more outgoing, among his influences and says they always nurtured their seven children.

"But through all of that I remember the caring, the love, the wanting to see every child succeed," he said.

Morgan moved on to Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, majoring in chemistry and biology. He later went to business school at the University of Dallas, "a pristine, white institution", doing a master's degree in industrial administration. After returning to Jamaica in the 1980s, Morgan then went back to Texas Southern University and did a PhD in educational administration and public administration.

The number of areas he is trained in, Morgan said, "make me a generalist. I have lived long enough to see the world come to an appreciation of someone who is multidisciplinary".

Overwhelming feeling

Armed with the PhD, Morgan went into consultancy, going into management training, among other quality-oriented services. He spread his wings from Jamaica to the wider Caribbean.

But the relocation urge came - and not to go abroad.

"And then that was to a degree interrupted about seven years ago ensconced in New Kingston, at the top of your game, this feeling of ... . It's almost like an agitation, you can choose to either play the game and be comfortable or challenge the status quo," Morgan said.

"Those feelings, they became so overwhelming that I was forced to make a choice. And that choice was the relocation to Trench Town," he said.

Interestingly, Morgan's move piqued the interest of clients. "I knew I was prepared to sacrifice everything to find greater meaning for myself."

The most negative and positive responses Morgan got were the same - "be careful", the difference being in tone. But no one said don't go. "No one stands in the way of a made-up mind," Morgan said.

His family was very supportive and Morgan said his wife Sandra, who died in July, became almost like a mother to the area. Son Adriel attends Ardenne High School and daughter Alyssa is at university.