Promoting Enterprise In The Caribbean Community – Queens Tribune

BY JON CRONIN

As was the case with many immigrants, entrepreneur and motivational speaker Dr. Roy Hastick came to the United States in pursuit of the dream to create a better life for himself, but he never imagined that he would foster the dreams of others as well.

Hastick moved to America from Grenada in 1972 when he was 21 years old.

Every Caribbean person looked to America as the place for the American dream, he said.

He said that with experience in law enforcement in his native country, he was fortunate to have found a job quickly with the Port Authority at the World Trade Center. During his time there, he got to know then-Executive Director Peter C. Goldmark.

We developed a rapport, said Hastick, who later took a job as Goldmarks security assistant. I met many elected officials and I was inspired.

He eventually took positions in other city agencies. In the early 1980s, he began working with a man who published a Caribbean-American newspaper.

I fell in love [with publishing] and started my own paper, said Hastick.

His paper didnt last long, but Hastick said that he enjoyed being part of the community.

While I was publishing, I met many luminaries and entrepreneurs, he said. I was working with a lot of small business owners and, as a result, I started the Caribbean-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry. There was no chamber of commerce in New York City at the time.

He described the chamberwhich was founded in 1985as a nonprofit statewide organization that promotes business between the United States and the Caribbean via offices in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

We represent a sizable amount of folks in Queens, said Hastick.

Today, the chamber boasts a membership of 1,700 in the tri-state area and Caribbean. For the past 32 years, it has promoted economic development on behalf of Caribbean American, African American, women and other minority entrepreneurs.

Hastick, who is the president and CEO of the nonprofit, continues his efforts to create structure and harmony in a diverse small-business community.

In the 1990s, Hastick was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Medgar Evers CUNY College in Brooklyn.

The chamber will hold its annual celebration on June 8 at Brooklyn Borough Hall as part of Caribbean Heritage month and then have a 32nd anniversary celebration in November.

Hastick has convened more than 700 business development seminars that bring together the chambers membership with other entrepreneurs and the wider business community to network.

During the seminars, he said that he talks about how he started the chamber, its vision and how he partners with other institutions. He also discusses networking with agencies that work locally and internationally and push two-way trade.

The chamber has provided weekly business clinics on access to financing, certification preparation and promoting trade, Caribbean investment and financial literacy.

Under his leadership, the chamber has managed the city-owned, Brooklyn-based micro enterprise incubator, a 9,000-square-foot Flatbush Canton Vendors Market that houses 40 vendors selling a variety of African and Caribbean artifacts and a small business service center.

Hastick is also coordinating the creation of a mixed-use project with a Caribbean American Trade Center, 250 units of affordable housing, an upscale Flatbush Canton Vendors Market and cultural center.

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Promoting Enterprise In The Caribbean Community - Queens Tribune