Multidimensional business memoir and company anniversary celebration.
Charlotte Elias entrusted us with helping her father, Emile Elias, honour the 50th company anniversary of a group he founded, and that today includes the number one indigenous construction company in the Caribbean (NH).
This story starts with Emile's parents who, like many other migrants searching for someplace better, left their home in Lebanon in the 1920s, with little more than their stuffed cardboard suitcases and a will to re-create their life an ocean away.
This company anniversary book captures the intertwined narrative of key players and the historical events that shaped Emile and, by extension, the company. It also looks to the future and sets out the unique culture and values that will help the company strategize for the next 5 decades (especially important for incoming employees and future generations). Finally, the book and its story will help humanize the company, and help it authentically connect with the public.
After hundreds of hours of writing, developmental editing, research, and book design, our team developed a personalized company history book that had been over 50 years in the making.
Our work also informed the backbone to a corporate film, web content, the company anniversary celebrations and speeches.
1500 copies of this book were printed on Accent Opaque Text White Smooth paper (148gsm), allowing for a super smooth finish for near matte print fidelity.
REGIONS COVERED: Lebanon, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Scotland, United Kingdom, the U.S.
“Plantain’s passion fuels their ability to listen deeply to the many facets of a story, and their sheer determination and unwavering integrity bring these stories to life in a way that they can be accessed by all. This is done with immense humility and they use creative insight to make these unique interpretations in many mediums. It has been an honour to have known and collaborated with them over the last three years, and our family applauds their work.” - Charlotte Elias, Director, NH
“I did my Ordinary level exams at St Mary’s College and when I was done they told me that there was no space for me in the Higher Certificate. They had promoted guys before the exam results had come out simply because of the number of years they had been there. That meant that people who had nowhere near the level of my marks had been promoted, and yet I had just achieved a double first and a school prize.”
“Notice the snow in the background. My eyes are shut because I blinked and my lids froze. I had to wash them with hot water. Ha! Ha!
Emile.”
“I had an umbrella and I strolled down the aisle and just tipped these boxes over one by one until thousands of buttons were on the ground. His two sons kept running after me, ‘Emile what is wrong with you?! Are you crazy?’
I paused.
‘Yes!’ and kept tipping these boxes.
Bam!
Buttons flying all over the place.
Bam!”
“The first retroactive cheque the oil companies gave the country was more than the national budget! All of those government fellas’ heads got dizzy with money and that is when the boom started.
...I had been waiting”
“By 1970, the company had outgrown its office at Queen Street and we relocated to the current headquarters. The guy who owned the building gave us a five-year lease with a buyout clause but put a very high price on it. After three years however, it was clear that it was worth a lot more so we exercised the option and bought it. That is how we ended up where we are now.”
“The telephone lines would stop working. ‘TELCO poops’ is what anyone would say when the phone lines were down: ‘I tried to call you but TELCO poops.’ So we had 30 cars on the road with two-way radios. Just imagine: 30 cars with 30 drivers with 30 radios just to stay in touch.”
Three generations of the Elias family photographed on the roof of the new COSTAATT Building at the “topping-out” ceremony.
Preliminary run of prints before the final run.