Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline James-Lyttle.
Hi Jacqueline, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am a Vincentian-born, self-described Polymath. By trade, I am an engineer who graduated as the first black female engineering graduate from the US Coast Guard Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. I also made my mark as a scholar-athlete and two-time all-American. Recently in October 2020, I was inducted into the Coast Guard Academy’s Hall Of Fame for Track and Field.
I received the Master of Science in Architectural Engineering and the Doctor of Philosophy in Civil and Architectural Engineering from the University of Miami. But let’s step back just a little and meet my first two heroes, Amy and Walter James, my grandparents. I experienced love and total bliss living with my grandparents from birth until age 7. The years that followed fell quite short of earlier bliss as they included the nightmare of living as a child observer in a domestic abuse situation.
Nevertheless, I was able to escape through friendships, sports, Girl Guides (Girls Scouts), dance classes, and the thrill that came with a glimpse of my leadership skills. Academics and sports got me to the Coast Guard Academy and 4 years later, the University of Miami where I was introduced to myself as an academic and met my mentor and one of the largest forces in my life, Professor Gerald F. DeMarco (GFD).
The Academic: While making a grad student stipend of $900 a month at UM, I received a call inviting me to apply for a prestigious fellowship to teach at the Coast Guard Academy. I was both overwhelmed and overjoyed when I later received the award and a handsome salary offer for my first appointment. At the academy, I taught Civil Engineering courses and volunteered as the sprint coach of the Coast Guard Academy Men’s and women’s track teams. Later, I was hired by the Civil Architectural Environmental Engineering department at the University of Miami (UM) and was director of the Building Systems Laboratory.
The Entrepreneur: While teaching at UM in 2007, I founded IMARA. In 2020, IMARA merged with the Architecture company owned by Professor DeMarco and Dorota Inc., owned by long-time friend, Dorota Lopez. Later that year, we sadly lost Professor DeMarco.
With Lopez and I as CEOs, the legacy company, GFD Group Miami, serves the US and the Caribbean providing services in Architecture, Engineering, Interior Design, and Construction Management. GFD is also the donor of a scholarship given yearly to an Architecture and an Engineering student at the University of Miami in Professor DeMarco’s name. In 2022, I officially launched Global 27, a property development company specializing in sustainable luxury construction. The first project is a 40-unit gated community in St. Vincent and the Grenadines that breaks ground in late 2023.
Additionally, in 2007, I co-founded Tarakon Records with International Billboard Platinum Artist and cultural ambassador to SVG, Kevin Lyttle. The record label along with its multi-room studio, music distribution, and publishing companies are located in Miami Florida. The combination of business and leadership moves earned me the honor of being named one of Miami Dade County’s 25 most influential and prominent Black women in business and leadership.
The Philanthropist: In 2008, Mr. Lyttle and I co-founded the Janice Lyttle Foundation. The Foundation donated over half a million US dollars worth of supplies and equipment to the Milton Cato Hospital in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) following the December 2013 disaster recently during the 2021 eruption of the volcano in St. Vincent, the foundation joined forces with Global Empowerment Mission and Caribbean Strong provide help to the people of St. Vincent by sending 15 containers to the island. In 2009, I was interviewed by the SEARCHLIGHT newspaper in St. Vincent and mentioned a dream born during my teenage struggle.
The article opened with something I mentioned during the interview, “I would like to open an orphanage and a home for abused women”, twelve (12) years later in 2021, that childhood dream came true as I joined a powerful and influential group of four other women who together founded and now sit on the board of Esther’s Promise. Esther’s promise provides at-risk young women in SVG with affordable housing, life skills development, and continued support so that they achieve and maintain self-sufficiency and become empowered in mind, body, and spirit.
https://www.searchlight.vc/special-features/2009/01/09/i-would-like-to-open-an-orphanage-and-a-home-for-abused-women/
https://estherspromise.org
https://estherspromise.org/our-directors/
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not. It has been neither smooth nor typical. At the bottom of my email, I always have a quote that has defined my life’s journey. The quote says “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” -Robert Frost. My story above talked about my teenage struggle. Additionally, the opportunities that took me to the Coast Guard Academy became the terror that made my four years there difficult. The monthly stipend I was previously offered was never delivered and I found myself moneyless and without my family in a strange city and country.
Upon graduating and expecting to return as the country’s first female Coast Guard officer, I was informed that I could not be accommodated. I was left jobless and without immediate options, as timelines for graduate school applications had expired. Overcoming early difficulties has helped me significantly as a woman in the construction/engineering field. Judged as weak and possibly incompetent until accepted by male counterparts is the “tradition” of the profession. I have learned to handle myself like a boss.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about GFD Group Miami?
GFD Group Miami, LLC provides Architectural Engineering, Interior Design, and Construction Management Services. Our firm practices in an interdisciplinary manner, where creative design collaborates with well-ordered engineering to produce beautiful and carefully curated projects.
A diverse combination of professional backgrounds allows us the unique ability to tackle projects of all types and scopes. Our key personnel hold professional licenses in architecture, engineering, interior design, and general construction. Our projects vary in scope and function from residential to commercial to institutional structures.
GFD Group Miami builds upon the legacy of Gerald DeMarco, an Architect, who established his practice in Miami, Florida in 1981. With a fiercely loyal team, most of whom have worked with the company for over fifteen years, DeMarco & Associates worked on projects that varied in scope and function from residential to commercial to institutional structures.
In 2020, after 60 years in professional practice, Gerald DeMarco decided to pass on his practice to a younger generation of associates, who would carry on the legacy he envisioned. And so, GFD Group Miami was formed.
GFD Group Miami continues to practice with the same core people and principles that made DeMarco & Associates so successful. But, to the mix, we add a new long-term vision, new technology, and new systems to ensure this new company will thrive and live on for generations to come.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I don’t believe in luck. I believe that the universe has got my back and I believe that success lives where smart work and preparation meet opportunity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gfdmiami.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyttlebosslady/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D
- Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/lyttlebossladybiz
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyttlebosslady/
- Other: Philanthropy: Website: https://estherspromise.org/, support@estherspromise.org
