Wendy knows every blooming thing and more...

On most days you can find NAMDEVCO Chairman Wendy Lee Yuen up to her wrists in the dirt, wearing a simple pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt. She wears her hair short and prefers to go without make-up, because “the heat will melt it off anyway,” she laughs. No nail polish either. “If I wore it, I’d have to wear gloves, and I love to feel the soil between my fingers.”

Point to any plant and ask her about it and she will tell you about it with certainty. It’s a love that was born many years ago, growing up on a ten-acre property in La Romaine, South Trinidad; she was literally surrounded by every conceivable type of mango tree, other fruit trees and flowering plants. The family also reared animals and grew vegetables between the flowers of their front garden, so it was not strange to see little eight-year-old Wendy weeding, watering and taking care of the greenery. All too soon though, it would stop (for a while).

“My parents migrated to Jamaica in 1964, uprooting me (pun intended) from what I was used to,” she explained. “They would live there for three years before moving on to Barbados in 1968, where I attended St Ursula’s Convent. Because I had started my education very early, I finished school early at 15, and they were in a dilemma as to where I would do A-level because there were no facilities at my school in Barbados. So in the end they decided to send me to Jamaica to do my A’s at a boarding school facility in Kingston, the Immaculate Conception High School... and they (the students) never let me forget that I was from a small island!” (Laughs)

From early on, she developed a great sense of independence, something that she still sustains, together with an assertive attitude, sprinkled with a sense of humour. “My father’s best advice was about keeping my sense of humour,” says Lee Yuen. “I think that it’s stood me well throughout my life. I mean, if you can’t laugh at yourself when others are laughing at you, you will go ballistic and that will send your blood pressure up. My independence is possibly one of the factors that I can identify in my character development; I’ve been told I’m a little aggressive for a woman, but it’s only because I don’t sit back and wait on things, I’m a doer, a go-getter. I’m persistent, but not stupid. I set my targets. I would tell people that I’m single-minded, my mother would say, ‘God you’re stubborn!’ But I won’t knock my head on a stone wall. Sometimes determination is not a quality that’s often admired in a woman.”

She was determined however, to explore her island home during her formative years, which she enjoyed, learning every nook and cranny. Being a visitor is not the same as being a tourist. For Lee Yuen, discovering hidden beauty spots in both islands came with a sense of pride and accomplishment, for she can now boast that she knows places in most islands that aren’t on any map, catalogue or brochure, that not even the villagers know about. That explorer’s spirit came back home with her after she completed her schooling, then she began to teach high school in 1974. It was then she met and married her husband of 28 years, and he had to promise her that she could attain her dream of attending university.

“You see, after marriage, saving money and working for four years, I knew there was more to do. My family was old-fashioned and one of the conditionalities for getting married was that my husband permits me to go on to university. My husband wasn’t the one to deny me; you see, it did not mesh with my father’s vision for women. Higher education didn’t seem to factor in his vision for his daughters’ lives (I have two sisters). I was born in the 50s and this was the 70s. Eventually, I got him to agree about university, so I enrolled in 1978 and did Natural Sciences for that first year. Then my son came along. While doing Zoology, Botany and Chemistry, I suddenly discovered that there were too many words with ten letters or more that I couldn’t relate to, or see the continuation of that line of study having a profound influence on my related choice of career. So right there and then I applied to transfer to agriculture.”

Doing a full-time degree programme with a husband to cook for and a baby to mind is difficult, yet despite all that, she was elected class representative and was awarded the Marie Curie prize for being the best all-round final-year student. Determination indeed, has its own reward, for Lee Yuen got her honours degree in agriculture. Now she was faced with a new dilemma. Should she work for someone, or stay home and spend quality time with her son and look at her options? “I chose the latter,” she says. “I was really the happiest person to graduate in the class and I started doing landscaping but was always involved in the agricultural sector in one way or another, networking with other students, looking for business opportunities. The worst day of my life was when I had to put my son into nursery school. I had this immense feeling of guilt, that I was a terrible mother, opting to follow my education instead of staying home to take care of this infant. I dropped him off and I was actually in tears for the entire day. But I shouldn’t have panicked, because he came home happy. As moms we always agonise about these things. Men don’t have to, they can uproot themselves with ease, or come and go at the drop of a hat.”

Her husband, son (24) and daughter (18) are proud of their mother, who is fully involved with her chosen field of agriculture. Lee Yuen was also a founding member of the Association of Professional Agricultural Sciences and has served as president of the Horticultural Society for several years. She was also vice president of the Agricultural Society and in 1999 became their first female president. “There are a lot of people out there that think that the agricultural society is a man’s domain, you know that? I think I made a valuable contribution; each president should have a vision and bring that vision to the society. We were able to have interactions with numerous district societies... it’s being able to convince other members that this is a valid activity and you have to reach out to the members. I didn’t just join an organisation because there is one out there, it has to work.”

Throughout her involvement in the agricultural sector, Lee Yuen has represented Trinidad and Tobago at many fora: she’s been sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation to present a paper at the Rural Agricultural Society to Commonwealth Conference back in 1998 in Australia, which she says catapulted her into public speaking. She has travelled to Brazil, Chile, Holland, Costa Rica and most Caricom countries. She’s been asked to chair sessions at the  European Union Agricultural Branch, reference international funding, but what she remembers fondly, her experiences in England, where she represented Trinidad and Tobago at the Chelsea Flower show. “I actually got to meet Prince Charles,” she laughs.

The society has won lots of medals and awards, including the prestigious Holford Medal (2001) which is given  to the country with the best display of flowers in all the shows in the UK. “It’s always a rewarding and wonderful experience to be there to have these compliments paid to our flowers, foliage and our displays,” she said humbly. “Our winning the Holford medal was the greatest achievement... no... the pinnacle of our horticultural achievement! Joan, one of our members, is a fantastic designer. Thanks to her, at the end of that day we had the most photographed display at the entire show. I like to think it’s that little bit of carnival creativity in every Trini. Our displays have a rhythm, they move, they speak to you. We were so proud, receiving all those medals and compliments, but the best part was how people talked about wanting to visit us, and see the actual plants growing in fields, on trees and in gardens. If we could just capitalise on that market, bringing in plane loads of people to visit with us, all the cruise ship people who come in to see our plants, we will be successful, for they (visitors) are a valuable market too.

“Things like that make you feel that you contributed, and it makes you feel you’ve contributed to your country’s development, so when I was being asked to be the chairman at National Agricultural Marketing and Development Company (NAMDEVCO, now for over two years), there was no question. “I serve in whatever capacity I can, sharing my knowledge and experience of over 12-plus years with anyone who wants to know. I also teach landscape management at the university, and I’ve just been asked by the Ministry of Planning and Development to represent the agricultural sector on Vision 2020 Committee. “I take that very seriously and I also take it as recognition of my participation in the sector for all these years. I also participated in the Caricom secretariat, meeting with ministers of agriculture for the region repeatedly, both as a participant and as an observer. “You need to be a thinker, have a vision and see how things can develop.”

Workshops, conferences, meetings and more seem to dominate her life, but she has found that balance between work and family and kept it. At present, she is involved with growing and supplying foliage and flowering plants in a nursery located on Caura Royal Road in El Dorado. Most of the plants are used in projects with Home Construction Limited and she is currently in the process of extending the nursery, already filled with local and foreign plants. Here was where she seemed more at home somehow, away from the office, surrounded by the greenery. Maybe she was thinking about NAMDEVCO’s upcoming trade mission trip to Martinique next month, where she hopes to penetrate the market with our fresh produce. But it was impossible to tell, as her hands were once again deep in the soil, touching nature’s gifts.