Background
He was born on November 24, 1918, in Greenville, Sinoe County, the second of six children.
He was born on November 24, 1918, in Greenville, Sinoe County, the second of six children.
Educated at the College of Liberia, he did a spell as an enrolling in the Liberian Senate from 1942 to 1943, before going to the USA to Howard University, 1944-8, where he took a BSc, following with postgraduate studies in engineering at Cornell University and a special course in telephony with the Automatic Electric Company of Chicago.
With these unusual scientific qualifications, he returned to Liberia in 1951 and was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Communications and chief telephone engineer, finally Commissioner of Communications in 1953.
The telephone system was badly deficient and he supervised the programme which gave Monrovia its first automatic exchange in 1964, and a microwave network connecting 31 Provincial cities.
He was made chairman of the Public utilities Authority in 1961 responsible or providing electric power which was mpidly falling behind the booming consumption as Liberia became an Portant mining centre. He managed to uold the rapidly increasing demand until j"e construction of the $30m. St Paul “lyer hydro-electric project which was completed in 1967. In the same year he also became a consultant and adviser to the Department of Economic Affairs. He was appointed Secretary (equivalent to Minister) of Public Utilities Authority by President Tubman. This appointment was confirmed by President Tolbert in his new cabinet of January1972.
As an engineer and good administrator m a country short of scientific and technical experts, he arrived back from training in the USA just as Liberia’s essential telecommunications, power and water services were being dramatically expanded to make Liberia into a tnodern state. He built much from scratch and was ready to meet the challenge as Liberia’s iron ore mining industry expanded fast in the late fifties and sixties.