Jim

"economy, an entrepreneur has to pull against gravity to succeed in my region. Yet that is precisely what K.C., Jim, Jack, and Arthur Irving, John Bragg, Harrison and Wallace McCain, among a few others, have been able to do. I thought that I owed it to one of them to write his"

"His experience at Ceramco, and at St Martins Properties, a much smaller company which had floated just before the crash and had suffered accordingly, taught Gibbs that he didn’t enjoy being a chairman of public companies. Regulations were onerous and he was forever obliged to explain himself in the press. As well, he felt particularly responsible when friends and family had put their money in, relying on his abilities; people like Jill Holt, the widow of his old friend Jim. She’d invested in St Martins and after the crash stood to lose most of her investment. She recalls that much to her relief Gibbs bought the shares back off her at the listing price, as he did with others she knew. ‘Some people,’ she says, ‘said that it was nothing to him, he was rich, but the fact is that most men in his situation don’t do what he did. It was very nice of him.’[37](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477346-006497775-37) Having done the rounds, Gibbs concluded that chairing a private company where only the principals had shares, such as Freightways, was much simpler."