In the backyard of an unassuming house in East Ruimveldt, the seeds of a revolution – long in the making – are being re-sown.
For Alanzo Phillips, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ABTK Interlocking Bricks, the company he started one year ago is no mere business endeavour. The simple clay brickmaking factory at his childhood home is the first step in his larger plans for giving back to “his Guyanese people” and its location on the premises where
he once played and dreamt dreams that eventually saw him migrating to the USA is no mere convenience. This is where he learnt the joys of giving from an early age from a mother, who – although the family was not wealthy – was always helping people. His is a story of returning to your roots, armed with the necessary technology and skills, to bring its long-acknowledged potential to full fruition, of rubbing the dust of contemptuous familiarity away to reveal the treasure beneath.
“We in Guyana don’t know what riches we have in this country,” he declared passionately, as he demonstrated with the assistance of two workers how the bricks, made of laterite (loam) and three per cent cement, were carefully and efficiently produced. Within the space of a few minutes, more than 10 freshly-made bricks laid on a table.
Just as Phillips intends to transform his childhood home into a modern showpiece of clay brick architecture, he plans on transforming the local construction industry using his more durable bricks, which come in various designs and configurations and enable builders to use less steel and construct buildings faster, because of the interlocking design.
Gesturing to an example of concrete construction common locally, he pointed out how inferior cement blocks and shoddy workmanship plagued the sector, putting 
the populace – many of whom were already struggling and sacrificing to afford their own homes under further strain.
“I want to help people…that’s my whole thing: helping people in this country,” Phillips stressed, adding “people helped me when I reached America”.
And while he has remained true to his mother’s example and, along with his wife and children, has helped the community via regular shipments of “barrels”, he has always wanted to do more.
“I really, really want to help this country, especially when I see somebody’s house burning, it really grieves me to see someone’s house burning.”
In the future, he plans to donate his services to rebuild fire victims’ homes free of cost.
How it started
Phillips, who worked in the World Trade Centre building in New York and always had plans to turn his vacations home permanent, remigrated after 9/11 after more than 30 years aboard. With remembered horror, he related that he had only flown home the day before and had lost a friend when the towers crashed to the ground.
“I told myself when I go back home…., I am going to open a brick factory, the same thing Mr (Linden) Burnham talked about, because I knew we have the material in this country and nobody seemed to do nothing with it… Miners are washing it away and on the streets, the Government seems to hardly use it. We don’t know the value of it until somebody like me comes along and I am telling you and I am telling you and telling Guyana with what I am doing, we can build mansions stronger than concrete that we have right now and also fireproof, and I am telling you and telling everybody what we have in our country, no one can take away from us and we can build mansions and build this empire; and also for the low-income people, we could build back their house in seven days…”
The response has been encouraging to the blocks, he said, with several remigrants signalling their intention to build their houses using his products, in addition to his local clients. The registered business is well-poised to take off, as Phillips has already registered with the Guyana Revenue Authority as a contractor and has his team in place.
Asked what would be his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, Phillips, who noted that his primary challenge was the cost of the laterite, said: “Most of us are scared, many of us have the dream and have the thought, but we are scared. We are scared to invest, we have the talent and the dream, but we don’t stay focused on what we want to do unless somebody come around and say, ‘you know what: I think you should get into this business’, but that is not your idea and at the end of it, when you do it and that person leaves, you don’t know what to do, because remember, of course, it is not your idea. I always tell myself whatever is your dream, you stick to it, keep focusing and just continue to keep driving and driving and you will be successful, I know it (he smiles).”
“Our kids need to be encouraged to be entrepreneurs and own their own business.”
He related that over the years he has observed that “for you to be successful, you have to stay on the focus of what you want to do. Let no-one, no-one tell you can’t do it. Stay focused. In business, you have to be creative, come up with unique ideas.”
“I always tell myself business don’t happen in five days, it happens in five years. You have to prepare yourself to let the business see five years…”
The father of four then noted that the most important quality of an entrepreneur was being yourself. “You have to be yourself – you just got to keep pushing. Push. Keeping pushing, stay on focus, because at the end of the day, it comes down to you.”
Contact: 220-9191, 693-3593/649-7865; Lot 14 East Ruimveldt Housing Scheme, Georgetown; [email protected]
