The project partners met with the President and Prime Minister of Haiti last week and, not surprisingly, they were very supportive of the project. Our view is that these types of projects are critical to move Haiti forward. While there are many other issues occupying the world’s attention, not least of which is the oil spill in the Gulf, Royal Caribbean will continue to take an active role in Haiti’s long-term rebuilding as promised. There are no illusions here. Haiti faces incredible challenges that are far beyond any one company’s capacity to solve. But we are committed to play our part.I hope our readers are enjoying John Weis’ series on his time in Haiti helping President Clinton and Paul Farmer with their relief efforts and the beginning of the reconstruction process.   If there are aspects of John’s coverage that you would like to have him further explore, please let me know.  I am proud of the extent and quality of the assistance that John provided.  He makes things happen even in the most challenging of circumstances.  That is a characterization that suits Haiti well.  Now John is “back” doing his normal job, which still involves driving our efforts to construct a new school in Labadee, and to galvanize the Citadelle restoration project.  Congratulations to John on a job very well done.

Continuing on the Haiti front, last week there was a press announcement that Royal Caribbean will be working together with Bob Johnson and his team at the RLJ Companies as well as WIN, a successful local Haitian business group, to foster economic development in Haiti.  The particular focus in the beginning will be to construct two factories that will build a special kind of structural panel that is hurricane and earthquake resistant, yet economical for applications such as our school project, housing development and other commercial applications. These panels are a product of the GBS Company from Charleston, South Carolina that partnered with the RLJ Companies to build an upscale hotel in Liberia a few years ago.

The project partners met with the President and Prime Minister of Haiti last week and, not surprisingly, they were very supportive of the project. Our view is that these types of projects are critical to move Haiti forward. While there are many other issues occupying the world’s attention, not least of which is the oil spill in the Gulf, Royal Caribbean will continue to take an active role in Haiti’s long-term rebuilding as promised. There are no illusions here. Haiti faces incredible challenges that are far beyond any one company’s capacity to solve. But we are committed to play our part.