DR. MINOTT'S achievements are numerous. He will be the first to admit that it all began with a grandmother who thought he was brilliant, and who allowed him to conduct all sorts of experiments around the home, sometimes to her own detriment.

"My grandmother ­ she endured many things," he recalls. Her 'creng creng', a container for preserving meat over the fireplace, became one experimental site. After her grandson was taught how to graft plants, she suffered silently while he engrafted every plant on the property. Things blew up around her and on more than one occasion she was injured. "She still told me I was good," Minott recalls.

At school in Port Antonio, an English Teacher, a Mrs. Whitewell, also encouraged his creativity. Inventions were a way of life. Some things he did, only to find that they were invented before, but others were original. A 'godfather' who encouraged him was a Mr. Pottinger who ran the power station in Portland and who would invite him over on weekends to introduce him to the machines and teach him about electrical flux.

His at-home lab included old things from his grandfather's truck and old things from the power station. "It is a miracle that I was not poisoned," he comments as he remembers.

In 1958, he arrived at Kingston College as a boarder. His father, however, kept a close eye on him, as did his other siblings. All were to enter university on scholarships and graduate from Ivy League universities. Minott obtained first degrees in Mathematics and Physics at St. Augustine (U.W.I), later moving on the Institute of Petroleum in Mexico. Skipping over his Master's, he obtained his first Ph.D. at the age of 27 in electrical engineering. A second Ph.D. was subsequently obtained in Physics.

Locally, along with partners Drs. Cynthia Lewis, Alwyn Hayles and Brian Silvera he created Enerplan, an engineering and energy consulting firm. As a consulting engineer and scientist, he has worked in 42 countries for several multilateral agencies including the United Nations Industrial development Organisation, the Organisation of American States, CARICOM Secretariat, the Caribbean Development Bank, as well as the Canadian International Development Agency and the United Nation's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

DR. MINOTT'S work with young people started at high school. "I was really self-centred before I became an Christian. I was born again in 1960 while attending church at the Olivet Gospel Hall in Kingston. I got involved in the young people's movement." Soon, he was island president of the Sixth Form Christian Association.

Even then, he said, he tended to be a bit distant, not even knowing the names of many with whom he worked in youth groups. His whole approach to Christian service changed when one day, an adult leader in the movement quoted to him the scripture which states that "the good shepherd knows his flock by name." "I started paying a lot more attention," Minott recalls.

In AQUEST, which he believes is an extension of his Christian ministry, he says, "I get to know their names, their needs." His approach is close and personal, but provocative. "I challenge people's thinking about themselves. I try to do it diplomatically. I respect young people."

His wife comments, "One of the things that make me happy is that, though many of our students are not from homes where mother and father live together, I have seen my husband become a father to them in a very wholesome sense. I see him going for students in trouble, getting them guidance and counselling, working through different situations, sharing in their joy, sharing in their sadness.

"I sometimes wonder (at how much he has taken on himself) but I pray silently that God will continue to make him continue to be this kind of person. It gives hope.

"We had one student with us at Christmas who had been raped twice. We just made her welcome in our home. She has become quite a different person. She is now the top achiever in her class and is so much more confident."

Sandra Minott says that she had only two requirements of any man that she would marry. One was that he should be a Godly person with whom she could be "a witness together." The other was that he should love children and be a good father.

Dr. Minott has single-handedly and with the assistance of household help, raised three older children after separation from his first wife.

Make it He recalls, "Initially, I did not think I would make it. Thank God we had a housekeeper. She took over. She ran her own family in the country and helped me to run mine. She mothered them for 12 years. I taught them the word of God and we survived."

Still, today, Dr. Minott wonders why his Christian friends were not more supportive of his burden as a single father. "My Christian fellowship did not work the way it should. I have noiticed that when there is a break in the family, very few of them step forward to help."

Still, he said, they survived although he had to put a stop to his overseas consultancies, to spend more time with his children. This had a tremendous impact on him economically.

The activities of his company, Ener-plan, had to be scaled down. It was, before then, the most prominent energy company in the island and consultancies on news sources of energy were pursued all over the world.

Wise choices Enerplan went into the doldrums, but then AQUEST was born and became his primary source of funding. Still, 40 per cent of the students are unable to pay the fairly modest fees, the scientist notes. These are sponsored by the oranisation.

In his words, Dr. Minott says that he was "distracted by politics" from his core work with young people, but this is not saying that his attempt at becoming the Member of Parliament representing Eastern Portland was a waste of time.

Leadership in politics goes to the very core of his beliefs, particularly in the belief he has in the difference that enlightened leadership can make.

"I have always felt that it is the politician, who by wise choices of policy, can effect lasting change, although they can also ruin society in the biggest possible way. In Jamaica, there has been too much of a retreat of good people from politics.

"It was a fabulous experience," he says about the campaign trail.

In East Portland, considered to be one of the most fractious constituencies, he was able to weld it into a "sort of unity", something that he is still working at.