Wilbert Owen Bascom, Ph.D's Obituary
Wilbert Owen Bascom was born on January 7, 1937, in the village of Vergenoegen, East Bank of Essequibo, but lived, as a young man with his siblings in the village of New Road Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara. After completing high school in Georgetown, he worked in the Guyana Civil Service before migrating to the UK to study. Wilbert obtained his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Wales, UK and was formerly an Assistant Lecturer at the City of London College. It was from there that he answered the return-to-Guyana call and became the General Manager (GM) of the Guyana National Co-operative Banking system.
In 1970, the then Government of Guyana established the Guyana National Co-operative Bank (GNCB) as a development bank to serve rural communities. It was in this banking system that Wilbert Bascom made a major contribution to his country.
After being the GM of the GNCB for many years, Bascom left Guyana for Dominica. He assisted in the establishment of the indigenous bank in Dominica, and later became an economic consultant to the Government of Dominica. He subsequently migrated to the United States of America.
In the United States, Wilbert Bascom resided in two Florida cities – in Tallahassee, where he worked for 14 years, with the Comptroller Office as the Chief of the Bureau of International Banking, and in Miami where he established Bascom Consulting as a consulting firm in financial regulatory and supervisory issues impacting domestic and foreign commercial banks and other financial entities in Florida, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. Wilbert was an Adjunct Professor at the Florida State University College of Business, and a Visiting Professor at the Florida International University Department of Economics. He was a member of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors’ International Banking Council and the Florida International Trade and Investment Council. Wilbert was also Chairman of the Florida Export Finance Corporation’s Board of Directors.
Wilbert Bascom authored “Bank Management and Supervision in Developing Financial Markets,” and “The Economics of Financial; Reform, in Developing Countries,”
Left to Charish his Memories are…
His wife, Kyree, his five children (Three sons: Wilbert Bascom, Jr., Richard G. Bascom, and Dale Browne. Two daughters: Jessica Cutler, and Jacqueline Bascom) and his five siblings (One sister: Jeanette Jones and Four brothers: Godfrey Bascom, Kenneth Bascom, Harold Bascom, and Morris Bascom), grandchildren, great grandchildren, and many loving cousins, nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews, other special relatives and caring friends.
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