Career Communications Group (CCG) Publisher and CEO Tyrone Taborn and CCG President Jean Hamilton have released a statement on the death of the Hon. Richard L. Bernal. “They were very close family friends,” Taborn said of the couple seen in this recent vacation photo with the two CCG executives. “His death is a shock to us because we were looking forward to hosting him for a weekly show on CCG’s STEM City metaverse to talk about his new books on Jamaica, the Caribbean, globalization, trade policy, and foreign policy. He will be missed. Our prayers are with his family.”

A diplomat and professional economist with 40 years of experience, Bernal was educated at the University of the West Indies (UWI), the University of Pennsylvania, the New School for Social Research, and the School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Most recently, he served as a professor of practice at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies at UWI.

Professor Bernal served as ambassador to the United States from 1991 to 2001, simultaneously holding the post of Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the Organization of American States. He was also a member of the Leadership Council of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and served on the Board of Directors at Laspau, Harvard University.

UWI News shared the following statement issued by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies, on behalf of the university community, on the passing of  Hon. Richard L. Bernal.

His distinguished career included dedicated service to The UWI in various capacities, among them, academic in the Department of Economics and the Institute for Social and Economic Research, the first Pro Vice-Chancellor for Global Affairs, and up to the time of his passing, Professor of Practice within the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies and Research Fellow at the P.J. Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy. Professor of Practice, the Honourable Richard Bernal, was a quintessential product of The University of the West Indies.

He was instinctively a regionalist and dedicated his considerable academic research and publishing to the regional development agenda. He was an outstanding scholar who committed his extensive internationally accumulated knowledge to crafting the progressive Caribbean consciousness. He was a public advocate of the social justice principle and contributed to the democratization of the postcolonial culture. He was a skilled and effective teacher and enjoyed the art of academic communication. He was a kind and reasonable colleague who believed in the academy’s values and was keen to participate in their consolidation. He was a friend to many university leaders and offered sound advice over several decades.

On his retirement from national service within the diplomatic realm, it was my honour to invite him back into the university community, where he facilitated the development of the global agenda and the Reputation Revolution which was being launched. The UWI embraced and empowered him to the end. May his soul rest in peace.