Kofi Sintim has a head for figures. Street addresses, postal codes and phone numbers, along with the most direct route from Point A to Point B, whir through his random-access memory, just waiting to be called up.
Numbers are a preoccupation in Sintim's line of work. He is president of Premex Courier Inc., an 11-year-old company with a growing roster of local, national and international clients. Sintim is being honoured tonight with the Business Person of the Year award, presented annually by the Montreal Association of Black Business Persons and Professionals.
He came to Montreal in the fall of 1980 from his native Ghana. He enrolled in Concordia University and, by studying during the summer, required only two years to earn an economics degree.
That drive led him to try different career options, financial planner, replacement postman and UPS worker, among others.
"The post office was good training. I learned to get around in treacherous weather. I could have stayed at UPS, but there was too much paper pushing," he said. "I wanted a job where I would be in full control."
All roads led him to launch his own courier company in 1991. There followed six slow years as Sintim learned the hard lessons of running a business in which margins are thin and time is money.
"It's a hustle business," he said. "Until the phone rings, you don't know where your next delivery will be. My biggest job is trying to maximize my drivers' time and the use of the vehicles."
He looks back fondly on the summer when gas prices topped out at 39 cents a litre. "Good times!" he exclaimed.
Today, gas costs nearly 90 cents a litre and Premex employs 60, with drivers in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. The company uses a fleet of 60 vehicles and Sintim himself isn't too big to hop in his car if a package absolutely has to get somewhere.
In the early going, Sintim had trouble finding a bank willing to lend him startup funds, so he dipped into his own savings to finance a business that can be capital intensive.
"We always made money, but it was hard to maintain positive cash flow. Like all businesses, we had customers who didn't pay their bills," he said. "One day a friend told me that a wise man gets paid for the work he does."
That's when Sintim realized that doing larger and larger volumes of deliveries would be pointless if he continued taking business from deadbeats. He began assigning credit limits on some customers and freezing other accounts. Getting paid is no longer a problem.
His company serves customers in every facet of the business world and ordinary citizens, as well. Premex operates MedicRush, a delivery service that gets prescription drugs from a wholesaler's warehouse to 500 pharmacies in Quebec and eastern Ontario.
In his line of work, one has to be ready for every eventuality. Sometimes it's better not to ask what's in the package.
"We delivered someone's ashes to a family member, once," he said.
His company has a regular customer, "an elderly introvert" in downtown Montreal who uses Premex for errands like picking up dog food or the latest fashions ordered by phone from Ogilivy, or paying her bills. Another client occasionally calls to have a driver pick up two one-litre cartons of milk at her depanneur, a chore she can't do because of severe arthritis.
"How much money can we possibly make on these deliveries?" Sintim asked rhetorically. "You do it because you have to, considering the predicament the person is in."
Sintim and his wife and eight of his employees will attend tonight's black-tie Jackie Robinson awards banquet. Other recipients include Bernard Jeanty, CA, a partner with the accounting firm of Schwartz Levitsky Feldman, honoured as professional of the year and Dr. Andre Arcelin, a family doctor affiliated with the Hopital Jean-Talon de Montreal who is active in Haitian community groups.
"The award means a lot to me because with it comes recognition. It means that all the hard work has paid off," Sintim said.
