N. Texas CEO Wants to be President of Haiti

from Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Posted on Sun, Aug. 28, 2005;

The walls of Haitian-American entrepreneur Dumarsais "Dumas" Simeus' Mansfield office bear witness to his success -- proud photos, awards and magazine covers recognizing his $100 million food empire in the rapidly growing city.

His humble roots are apparent, too: a framed photograph of a two-room shack with an aluminum roof in the village of Pont-Sonde, Haiti, where he was born 65 years ago.

Those roots have inspired Simeus, a Southlake resident and one of the nation's top black businessmen, in his role as a member of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Haiti Task Force. Now he is taking on the greatest challenge of his life: seeking the presidency of Haiti.

Simeus declared his candidacy last week, standing in front of that childhood home in Haiti. He says he brings more to the table than just a love for his country, where his parents still live. He brings the business savvy of a maverick CEO.

Haiti is "a country of 8 million customers that's into bankruptcy. And you need a professional leader, a professional executive to come and get the country out of bankruptcy," Simeus said in a recent interview in his second-floor office at Simeus Foods International, a Mansfield-based food-manufacturing company whose customers include Denny's, T.G.I. Friday's and Burger King.

Critics say the world in which Simeus has succeeded is very different from the one he wants to take over.

"It's impossible for someone from the diaspora to maneuver through the political land mines in Haiti," said Marie Florence Bell, chairwoman of Bush's task force, who is among a small group of south Florida Haitian-Americans who have hosted informal get-to-know-you sessions with Haiti's presidential candidates in recent months.

"The rules of engagement are completely different; it's a mind-boggling, complex, multilayered society," she said.

Eligibility

Bell and others say that while they respect Simeus' accomplishments, he should take note of the last Haitian who tried -- but failed -- to stabilize an impoverished and volatile Haiti: longtime south Florida resident and current interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue.

"After seeing what Gerard Latortue has done to the country, I would rather have someone be president of Haiti who has lived in Haiti for the past five years and knows what is going on," said Charles-Henri Baker, a leading opponent of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who intends to run for president as an independent.

Simeus said the Haitian people have misunderstood why Latortue has failed.

"It's not the fact that he's been in the diaspora," said Simeus, a father of three. "It's the fact that Latortue is not a proven leader, a proven executive. He's never had to manage and run complex organizations. That is the only reason why he has not delivered."

Simeus faces enormous challenges before the Nov. 6 election. He must get 100,000 signatures by Sept. 10 to qualify for the ballot as an independent. And he must energize a disenchanted electorate while staving off attempts by Haiti's political class to derail his presidential bid.

Many Haitian politicians have been waiting in the wings since the fall of dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in 1986 and Aristide's departure last year.

They argue that Simeus can't be president because he has lived abroad for 44 years.

Article 135 of the Haitian Constitution says a presidential candidate must "be a native-born Haitian and never have renounced Haitian nationality." The candidate must also have resided in the country for five consecutive years before the election.

Simeus said he has never renounced his Haitian citizenship despite being a U.S. citizen. And he argues that constitutional requirements don't apply in any case, saying Haiti has been operating outside of the constitution since Aristide's ouster in 2004.

Big dreams

The story of how the son of an uneducated farmer and a merchant woman became a successful American businessman is about never losing sight of the dream.

Like many Haitian youngsters, Dumarsais Simeus stood on the docks of St. Marc, near his hometown, and dreamed of going where the boats came from.

His parents sold a plot of land to help him buy a plane ticket to attend college in the United States. He enrolled at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee before eventually graduating from Howard University in Washington with a degree in electrical engineering. He earned a master of business administration from the University of Chicago.

He eventually landed a job with TLC Beatrice Foods International, where he developed a reputation for being a taskmaster and "fixing what's broken."

He honed his business savvy as president and chief operating officer at Beatrice, the nation's largest black-owned company.

His Mansfield firm, which he bought in 1996 with a $55 million loan, is Texas' largest black-owned company and the country's largest black-owned food-processing plant, according to Black Enterprise magazine. Through it all, Simeus kept in close touch with his homeland.

Though he brought 40 relatives to the United States, including 16 siblings, a foundation bearing his name provides health care, food, clothing and education to residents of Haiti's breadbasket, the Artibonite Valley.

"The bottom line is he is a native son of Haiti, clearly born and raised in Haiti, went out in the world to make a success and he has kept constant connection with Haiti," said Rob Allyn, a Dallas-based GOP political strategist hired by Simeus.

The firm has helped engineer victories for candidates in the Bahamas, Indonesia and Mexico, as well as for the George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign in Texas.

"Anyone would agree that Dumas Simeus has never forgotten where he came from," Allyn said.

IN THE KNOW

Dumarsais "Dumas" Simeus

Age: 65

Birthplace: Pont-Sonde, Haiti, in the Artibonite region

Education: Immigrated to Florida in 1961 to attend Florida A&M University; electrical engineering degree, Howard University; MBA, University of Chicago

Title: Chief executive of Simeus Foods International, which employs 400-plus workers at its Mansfield and North Carolina operations

Personal: Wife, Kimberly, and three children. Helps provide health care and potable water in Pont-Sonde through his Simeus Foundation.