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Gordon "Butch" Stewart grew up playing barefoot on a beach in a small fishing village in Jamaica. Today he makes millions by bringing that same joyful experience to the thousands of guests who visit Sandals, one of the largest and most luxurious resort chains in the Caribbean.Though a happy-go-lucky child, Stewart knew by the time he was a teenager that he wanted to go into business. "My mother had a small appliance business, and I loved selling toasters and fridges to people. I couldn't wait to leave school," he says.
He got a job selling appliances for a large Dutch trading company in Jamaica and quickly built appliance sales into the company's largest department. But he was itching to do his own thing. He was 26, with about $3,000 in savings.
Stewart had noticed the prevalence of Fedders air conditioners on a trip to New York. The New Jersey-based Fedders was at the time the world's largest manufacturer of room air conditioners, but they weren't sold in Jamaica. Stewart saw an opportunity.
He wrote to the corporation, offering to become its distributor. Six weeks later, Fedders replied. "They said they could be interested, but they figured I didn't have enough capital," Stewart says. "I bought an airline ticket, headed for New York and took a cab to their headquarters." He said he'd pay cash up front on the first shipment. With nothing to lose, Fedders agreed to a deal.
"We sold 27 air conditioners before the shipment arrived," recalls Stewart. Within three months, he'd exceeded his sales projections by 525 percent. No order was too small, no request too demanding. A friend might call in a panic at seven o'clock in the evening, saying, "It's my wife's birthday, and I forgot I promised her an air conditioner," and Stewart would say, "No problem, man."
"We go up there, knock out the wall, put in the air conditioner. By midnight, the room is cool. My friend has a happy night, and when he gets up the next morning, he says to his friends, 'If you need an air conditioner, call Butch Stewart.' "
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