IT&E’s Barry is Chamber’s Businessperson of the Year

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce hailed IT&E marketing manager Kathryn Barry as its 2008 Business Person of the Year during its installation dinner Saturday night at the Hibiscus Hall of the Fiesta Resort and Spa Saipan.

Barry beat out a very impressive shortlist of nominees for the plum, which included IT&E executive vice president and chief financial officer Lawrence Knecht, Tan Holdings Corp. vice president for corporate affairs, Century Hotel general manager, and Saipan Tribune publisher Lynn Knight, Saipan Sea Ventures owner and operator Anthony Pellegrino, and Pacific Islands Club director of sales and marketing Kanae Quinn.

Barry said she is grateful for the honor bestowed upon her, after taking over the podium from award presenter Juan “Pan” T. Guerrero, himself the Chamber’s Business Person of the Year in 2006.

“I’m speechless and that doesn’t happen very often. I guess the first thing I need to do is say thank you very much to the past recipients for this honor. You look at the names of the past recipients and gosh… I’m really now on the network, huh?” she said. “I really need to say thank you very much not only to the Chamber but also to the board for letting there be a little estrogen on the board.”

Barry, who was the sales and marketing director of Coca-Cola Micronesia before moving to IT&E, said she wouldn’t have won the award without the help of her co-employees at IT&E.

“I also need to say thank you to the people I work with everyday. While I’m handing out cake and hotdogs and getting on the radio, the people who make it easy for me to do my job—and I think Harry [Blalock] and I were talking about this the other day on the radio—have their pagers coming off at 3am in the morning because there’s a problem in the system or they need to check what’s going on and they need to answer their phones. I’m not the one doing that but these wonderful people I work with at the management team and all the employees make it easy for me to be able to market a quality product. So I have to really share this with the people I work with.”

Barry also thanked her bosses—IT&E president and CEO Ricky Delgado and Knecht—for providing the vision and direction for the telecommunications company.

She also gave kudos to members working with her in the Chamber’s Education Committee, for “helping to make the islands’ future a little brighter.”

Since 2006 Barry has chaired the Chamber’s Educational Committee, which coordinates the Educational Scholarship Program, the Student Career Exploration Day, and “I’m Graduating Soon, Now What?” for high school juniors and seniors.

The current Chamber secretary also gave thanks to her family—her husband Jim, two sons Chris and Bo, and especially her mother, Sylvia Haywood.

“Thank you for my mom—single mom. She’s my inspiration. She’s always been there for me. It was not easy for many years but she was always there and she always gave me the best of everything. Mostly, she gave me the wisdom that I try to use everyday to make the best decisions that I can. So I have to say, thank you to her as well.”

Before relocating to Saipan, Barry held positions at both Coca-Cola Enterprises and Coca-Cola North America. She is also a current board of director of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Guam, serves on the State Selection Panel for the CNMI Teacher of the Year, and is active in the Rotary Club of Saipan.

The past recipients of the Chamber Business Person of the Year are Asiana Airlines’ K.J. Kim (2007), Herman’s Modern Bakery and MITA Travel’s Guerrero (2006), Century Insurance’s David M. Sablan (2005), Continental Airlines’ Mark Erwin (2004), Tan Holdings Corp.’s Jerry Tan (2003), Saipan Shipping Company’s Alex Sablan (2002), Triple J. Motors’ Jay B. Jones (2001), Pacific Islands Club’s Wendi S. Herring (2000), DFS Saipan Limited’s Marian Aldan-Pierce (1999), McDonald’s of Saipan’s Joe C. Ayuyu (1999), Pacific Finance Corp.’s Ed Camacho, and EFC Engineers & Architects’ Efrain Camacho (1996).