Posts Tagged ‘John Weis’

An Update on Royal Caribbean’s Newest Partnerships for Haiti’s Reconstruction

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.

BY:Adam|12th July, 2010 4 Comments

Visiting Labadee for a Number of Reasons, Including a Site Visit of the Citadelle

On Friday, for the first time since October, Richard Fain and I visited Labadee. We had three goals for the trip. One, to meet our local management team and express our support for our people and their country. Two, for Richard to pursue the concept of building a school to serve the surrounding area. Three, for me to visit the Citadelle and understand what needs to be done to enable our guests to visit it when the ships call at Labadee. Joining us throughout the day were Minister of Tourism Patrick Delatour and one of President Clinton’s top advisers in Haiti, plus Craig Milan, John Weis and Maryse Kedar.

The site looked great and was in full stride with Independence of the Seas at the beautiful new pier.

I’ve been talking about the Citadelle for a long time so it made sense to actually go and see it for myself. It’s extraordinary. It is the largest fort in all of the Americas and it sits on top of a 3,000 foot mountain. How people in the early 1800’s got the rocks and munitions up that big hill is mind boggling. It was great getting the tour from the Minister of Tourism. Apart from his position in government, Minister Delatour is a historian/architect who has been personally involved in the restoration of the Citadelle since 1972. He explained, for example, that the cannons with Latin inscriptions are French, whereas the cannons with French inscriptions are British. Go figure. Each cannon has its own story. Many are still on their wooden mounts that allow the cannon to swivel and aim from various angles, waiting silently for the French invasion that will never come. The 360 degree view is phenomenal.

(more…)

BY:Adam|12th April, 2010 18 Comments

Guest Post: Moving Forward In Haiti

From John Weis

Well, it’s been approximately 2 months since my last blog about Haiti and the start of my assignment and I wanted to share with you some of the experiences and projects we’re working on. In summary, it’s been an emotional roller coaster ride with its share of rewarding experiences and frustrations in terms of helping as many people as you can but not helping enough.

Adam asked me to write this a couple of weeks ago but at the time I was in a very frustrated state of mind with projects that were not moving forward, communities not getting enough help and things grinding to a halt. If I wrote the blog then, it would have not been very positive, so I wanted to spare you the whining and write this when there was more progress going on down there.

In short, there is progress being made but at a very slow pace. The immediate relief in terms of medical, rescue and security was handled by a variety of international organizations including the US Military, Israeli Government, Red Cross and a host of other groups that are too numerous to count. There were also smaller organizations on the ground referred to as NGO’s (Non-Government Organization) that assisted in the relief effort and most of them are in it for the long haul.

(more…)

BY:Adam|2nd April, 2010 9 Comments

Helping Haiti Move Forward

Haiti is several weeks post-earthquake. Royal Caribbean’s involvement is what one would expect from our company and people. The media has moved on to other topics or at least other aspects of the post-earthquake environment. Meanwhile, our people and guests continue to help. This will remain true for a very long time given Haiti’s needs.

I would like to thank the remarkable number of people who wrote letters, sent emails and posted on blogs in support of the calls of our ships and the importance of delivering supplies, maintaining economic activity and sustaining hope. Some of the most heartfelt communications came from our own employees including at headquarters.

Fortunately the number of employees who have not made contact with us has significantly reduced. For days it was stuck at 34 out of 50 and it seemed that we were facing a possible 68% death rate of our crew who were at home in Haiti on vacation. Now the number is down to 11 and none of those are confirmed dead. So we continue to hope that all of our crew are in fact safe but we simply do not know. Nine of the 11 have addresses in the Dominican Republic so we’re hoping some of the 11 were not even in Haiti at the time. Obviously we are trying to contact them to be sure.

The ships are routinely bringing in pallets of supplies and within a week we will have delivered over 1,000 pallets. There is a focus right now on getting three generators onboard to be delivered to schools in Haiti. Also by a week from now we will have contributed over $500,000 in proceeds from the revenue we normally earn during our Labadee calls. In addition, in aggregate our shoreside employees, guests and crew have donated $300,000 to relief efforts.

(more…)

BY:Adam|8th February, 2010 9 Comments

Guest Post: On the Ground in Haiti

There are a lot of reasons why it is a good thing John Weis is in Haiti. Most of them have to do with helping the recovery effort and partnering with Messrs. Clinton and Farmer. But another reason is helping me with this blog as the earnings call last week and the Board meeting next week have put me squarely behind the eight ball. Anyway, there really isn’t anything I can say that matches John’s eyewitness account from Port-au-Prince.

This is day two in Haiti and from what I am told things are getting better slowly but surely. When I arrived I was expecting to see the worst but the first thing I saw was two C-17’s landing from the US unloading pallet after pallet of supplies. There were other nations at the airport as well including Brazil, U.K., Israel, France and Canada all with troops on the ground and ready to assist in any way they could. What was amazing is that as fast as they unloaded, it was being taken out of the airport compound to those who needed it. There were huge encampments of relief workers only dwarfed by the camps set up by the people of Haiti that had lost their homes.

The other thing that struck me was the sheer number of people on the ground helping in the relief effort. Not just military, but ordinary citizens who dropped what they were doing and came down here to help, some on their own dime and some associated with organizations or governments. Three of the people I spoke with had jobs and families that they simply put on hold and came down to Haiti to help people they didn’t even know.

While I thought I was prepared to see the destruction as a result of the pictures you see on the news, being here and seeing it is another story. The destruction in the downtown area was complete and very focused in the area of the government buildings and the immediate surrounding areas, although there is no place you can go where there isn’t some level of destruction by the earthquake.

Destruction to a building in Haiti

The pictures fail to capture the magnitude of the destruction and the raw power it took to destroy some of these buildings that had walls 3 feet thick. Many people are living on the streets right in front of their homes because they are afraid to go back inside. Other homes, while still standing have huge structural cracks making them unsafe. Others have had their homes completely destroyed and you see them trying to salvage what they can from their homes taking what they can from their lives before the quake.

(more…)

BY:Adam|2nd February, 2010 17 Comments

Guest Post: Water and Supplies Continue to be Distributed in Haiti

Each day a new set of opportunities, setbacks, advances and delays unfolds in and outside Haiti. The UN is obviously a major player in the relief and recovery effort. As previously noted we have worked closely with them especially in connection with President Clinton, Special UN Envoy to Haiti, and his Deputy Special Envoy Dr. Paul Farmer.

They have an absolutely enormous job on their hands and while all of our efforts are helpful to them, we have decided to provide more direct and immediate assistance in a form I believe will be exceptionally productive. We have agreed to second John Weis, our Associate VP, Private Destinations, to Paul Farmer for three months. John did a phenomenal job getting Labadee ready for Oasis of the Seas prior to the earthquake, and since the earthquake he has done a exceptional job of mobilizing our relief effort. While we will certainly feel John’s absence, we are proud to contribute him in this fashion. I have asked him to comment on this new twist in his relationship with Haiti:

I want to convey my thanks to Royal Caribbean, Adam and Craig Milan for giving me the opportunity to take on this challenge. My wife Stacy also supports this so I want to thank her as well. Over the past 3 three years, I have had the opportunity to do a lot of work in Haiti, so I have made many friends there and have grown to appreciate the friendliness of the people, their ingenuity and their endurance. So in short, I have a huge amount of gratitude for the team supporting this relief effort and the opportunity to work on something I have a great passion for.

My first and immediate task is to look at the logistics framework from a long-term perspective and establish a storage and distribution depot here in South Florida. I will share more details on this in the weeks to come.

The relief and rebuilding effort will be monumental and it is going to be completed one step at a time. Looking at everything that needs to be done to rebuild an entire city that has been destroyed can be daunting. People on the ground, like Maryse Kedar, and people back here, like Richard Pruitt, who is coordinating the relief effort on the Royal Caribbean side, will make sure this becomes a reality. I wanted to share with you some of Maryse and her team of eight’s efforts - which includes two crew members that went to her for help and are now playing a big role in the water distribution.

(more…)

BY:Adam|24th January, 2010 123 Comments

Guest Post: Update on Royal Caribbean’s Relief Efforts Taking Place in Port-au-Prince

I am proud of what our people and our ships are doing and below John Weis gives some very specific examples of great contributions being made by great Royal Caribbean people and their family members

The ships going back to Labadee, including Navigator of the Seas today, are obviously making a very valuable contribution to the relief effort by offloading supplies at Labadee. The media understand this and generally have written and spoken about the relief effort in positive terms. But in the last 24 hours, sparked by an article in the Guardian in the UK, a different and more critical view has emerged that questions how our guests can justify having a good time in Labadee when there is such misery less than 100 miles away.

My view is this — it isn’t better to replace a visit to Labadee (or for that matter, to stay on the ship while it’s docked in Labadee) with a visit to another destination for a vacation. Why? Because being on the island and generating economic activity for the straw market vendors, the hair-braiders and our 230 employees helps with relief while being somewhere else does not help. These 500 people are going to need to support a much larger network of family and friends, including many who are in (or are missing in) the earthquake zone. Also, the north is going to bear a good part of the burden of the agony of the south, and the more economic support there is to the north, the better able the north will be to bear this burden. People enjoying themselves is what we do. People enjoying themselves in Labadee helps with relief. We support our guests who choose to help in this way which is consistent with our nearly 30 year history in Haiti.

To John:

The team has been working through this holiday weekend and has been in contact with several people on the ground in Port Au Prince so I wanted to focus this blog on the efforts that are taking place there. We have all come to appreciate the resilience of the Haitian people and I think its important to share with you some of the positive things that are happening on the ground that are being coordinated by regular people like you and I.

(more…)

BY:Adam|18th January, 2010 221 Comments

Guest Post: Royal Caribbean Haiti Relief Update

Today was a day of positives and negatives.

First the negative, the news from Port-Au-Prince continues to be grim. Everyone has seen the news report so I won’t go into this in too much detail. It just makes us all sad.

On the positive side, I’m proud to say that Royal Caribbean today made a minimum commitment of $1 million toward the Haitian relief effort. This contribution will be spent supporting Food For The Poor, the Pan American Development Foundation, and other organizations in Haiti that are engaged in the relief effort. As I mentioned yesterday, the company will be contributing 100 percent of the net revenue earned from Independence of the Seas’ call today at Labadee. We shared this information with our guests yesterday and the response we received from them was very positive. Many guests that have heard about this tragedy wanted to do something and this was good way for them to show their support.

In addition, the first relief supplies were off-loaded today from Independence of the Seas. These will be distributed by the Food For The Poor. Here are some photos that I received from our folks on the ground:

Haiti Relief Effort - Royal Caribbean employee unloads supplies in Labadee from Independence of the Seas

(more…)

BY:Adam|15th January, 2010 36 Comments

Guest Post: Royal Caribbean Heading to Labadee

Today was the first day of real progress from our standpoint. We loaded Independence of the Seas with relief supplies today at San Juan, Puerto Rico, which included 60 cases of badly needed water and other dry goods.

We have also started to receive additional provisions, including four truckloads of drinking water, from our suppliers at our logistic center, which we are preparing to load on to Navigator of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas, to arrive on Monday and Tuesday.

On the home front, we have our link set up for contributions to Food For The Poor (http://foodforthepoor.org/royalcaribbean) for our customers and our employees.

And, we’ve agreed to commit 100 percent of the net proceeds from tomorrow’s tours and shore excursions during Independence of the Seas’ call to the Haitian relief effort.

These are just some of the initial things that Royal Caribbean is undertaking, and they will be followed by more. We just need to set down some more details before we put the rest of our plan to action.

(more…)

BY:Adam|14th January, 2010 64 Comments

Guest Post: Haiti Update

I’ve asked John Weis, our Associate Vice-President of Private Destinations, to share some of his thoughts as he helps coordinate our response to the natural disaster in Haiti. John and his team oversee Labadee and he can provide a unique perspective. Thank you John.

The Labadee team and I breathed a great sigh of relief when we finally heard from Maryse Kedar, President of The Solano Foundation. She lives in Port Au Prince and we have been working together for more than four years on community and development projects in Labadee.

She was very close to the epicenter of the quake and the last time that I talked to her was late yesterday in the afternoon, shortly after the second aftershock. The phone had cut off and I was fearing the worst. From that point, we hadn’t heard from her and we were getting very worried for her and her team.

Finally around 5 pm today, we got the word that she and her team were fine. Sadly she reported we had lost many friends, a few of them had worked with us on the construction project in Labadee. Our prayers go out to her and her team tonight.

Meanwhile, we continued with more thorough inspections throughout Labadee and we seem to have sustained no damages from the quake. We will be ready for Independence of the Seas if she should call on Friday.

We’re still coordinating our plans for our relief efforts and I’ll have more about that tomorrow.

I’ll try to update a couple of times tomorrow as we know more.

-John Weis, Associate Vice-President, Private Destinations, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

Interested in helping? Royal Caribbean International is working with Food For The Poor and the Pan American Development Foundation. We encourage guests to make monetary donations to either of these organizations which are currently engaged in the relief effort. For even more information on Royal Caribbean’s humanitarian relief to Haiti, click HERE.

BY:Adam|14th January, 2010 11 Comments
 

Community picks