Naysolin Richardson is relishing in her latest career milestone: becoming a certified Concrete Laboratory Technician since completing a three-month course in the Netherlands earlier this year. The diploma adds to her five-year career at Central Mix Concrete (CMC), qualifying her to make more decisions and take on more responsibilities. During her tenure at the company, she has also been able to develop her knowledge and skillset in the field by acquiring other certificates.
When Richardson initially returned home to St. Maarten from studying in the Netherlands, she was an All-round Laboratory Technician, and started working at CMC’s parent company Windward Roads as an Assistant Quality Control Technician for Asphalt and Concrete. Soon after, she moved over to CMC, which felt like a better fit, in line with her interests.
“As a company, one of our strongest values is to provide quality service and products,” she told The Weekender. “To provide this, I find it’s important to be knowledgeable and equipped with the right tools.” Having initially planned to take the course in 2018, her plans were postponed due to aftereffects of Hurricane Irma in 2017. The pandemic later delayed those plans again. When the opportunity presented itself at the start of 2022, she was finally able to take it.
It was also Hurricane Irma that drove home the importance of gaining the qualification. “It’s important that the rebuilding of St. Maarten is done with quality products and proper knowledge, in order to sustain any future natural disasters,” she said. She knew that further education was the way she would be able to do more for the island’s rebuilding, and education has always been important to her, she explained.
Richardson has enjoyed learning about how diverse concrete can be, and how endless its applications are. She also likes that the trade is dynamic and challenging.
Challenges and setbacks are not something that Richardson has let keep her back. She looks back at working from the age of 15 – two jobs at a time at some points, in order to get ahead. She became a teenage mother during her exam year in high school, which derailed her education at the time, and she needed to push through to be the best mom she could be while still working to achieve her goals. Now after completing college and doing well in a field that she enjoys, she maintains the attitude that “the journey is still continuing”.
