Dr. Sandra Palmer-Peart is a living example of the power of positive visualization and positive thinking. As a poor girl growing up in an obscure district in Manchester, Jamaica called Topsham, she would often gaze into the sky, wondering what lay in her stars, as it were. Even from those early years, she had a feeling the sky was her limit. She was not easily daunted. Though she failed her Common Entrance at first attempt, she more than compensated the following year and has not looked back since. She was Valedictorian at Bishop Gibson High School, having passed nine GCE O levels. She graduated with an Honours undergraduate degree at the University of the West Indies (Specializing in Political Science and Economics), and then went on to take the Distinction in her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Nova Southeastern University. For her Doctorate she again took an honours degree in Business Administration from Nova Southeastern, specializing in Information Technology Management.
Dr. Palmer-Peart is both a hard-driven, highly motivated and hands-on CEO as well as an intense academic and motivational speaker. As Founder of SSP APTEC in 1997---with her own meager equity, being un-bankable she now runs the diversified business, which includes Information Technology Products, Audio Visual Equipment Rental and Sales, Specialty Coating and Supplies and Trucking Services. The company has expanded overseas with an office in the United States. But Dr. Palmer-Peart also has strong academic interests and a passion for imparting knowledge, and so she finds fulfillment in her duties as Lecturer at the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies, where she teaches New Ventures and Entrepreneurship, and at Northern Caribbean University, where she lectures in the module Managing Organizational Behaviour. She is also a former lecturer at the University of Technology and Jamaica College.
Before academia, Dr. Peart worked as a Senior Marketing Executive at Eagle Information Systems after recovering from a major accident. Doctors said she would not walk again but she went on to become a Corporate Account Executive at InfoGrace, where she was a member of InfoGrace's Strategic Planning Team and marketed IT solutions to the corporate sector. In 1997 she earned the coveted titled of Account Executive of the Year. An entrepreneur and an academic. With a commitment to excelling in both areas.
Dr Palmer-Peart reads widely and is quite avant-garde in her business and marketing ideas. She is an out-of-the-box thinker who is always pushing the envelope. Her vision for SSP APTEC is to grow the company into a diversified conglamorate with not just a reach in the Americas, but the globe. She wants to create a distinct brand that takes its place among the respected brands of the world. Pretty heady stuff. But nothing to scoff at, considering this dynamic woman's history of fulfilling her dreams.
