By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 27, 2022 — During his campaign to become the first Black governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, the grandson of Jamaican immigrants, quite naturally received strong support from the Caribbean American Political Action Committee (CAPAC), which held a major fundraiser for the candidate in October that attracted many supporters with familial roots in the Caribbean.
One of the organizers of the fundraiser was Bahamian Chris C. Gardiner, a co-founder of CAPAC, who over the years has established important connections in Washington’s business and political circles.
Gardiner relentlessly continues to use his political connections in the current administration of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to support his ongoing campaign to establish a Sister City relationship between D.C. and Nassau, a campaign that I have fully supported in articles I have written for The Washington Informer, an award-winning Black-owned newspaper published in D.C.
Gardiner, who spent his boyhood years growing up in Grand Bahama, is the founder of GKA, P.C., a successful certified public accounting and consulting firm in D.C.
Born in the Turks & Caicos Islands, his family moved to Grand Bahama when he was five years old and he grew up in Pine Ridge and Freeport. His late parents were Christopher and Louise Gardiner and his father was “for many years the produce manager at Winn Dixie” in Freeport.
“As a boy I attended school in Pine Ridge, where the principal was Mr. Hugh Campbell,” Gardiner recalled in a BAHAMIANS IN THE DIASPORA article I wrote during my tenure as Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of the Bahamas in D.C. before my diplomatic status was revoked by the FNM after it won the May 2017 general election.
“Although we moved to Freeport in 1958, I still attended school in Eight Mile Rock because at that time, there were no schools in Freeport for black children,” Gardiner stated. “The Port Authority bused us to Eight Mile Rock. I later attended Mary Star of the Sea when the Catholic Church opened the school and I was one of the first three students to graduate from Mary Star. The others were Kenny (Jude) Barr and Mary Burns. I then went to Queen’s College in Nassau, from where I graduated in 1964.”
After graduating from QC, Gardiner said he worked briefly with Telecoms, and later went to work in the Commissioner’s Office with Commissioner V. A. Knowles. After the 1967 elections, he went to work in the Public Treasury, and after seven years after at the Treasury, he worked briefly with the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) before joining Coopers & Lybrand in 1973.
“During my preparations for the ACCA exams, Coopers & Lybrand sent me to London for intensive studies at the London School of Accountancy,” Gardiner says.. “I passed my final exams in 1978 and became a chartered accountant. I worked with C&L in Freeport and Toronto, Canada, for two years before transferring to their Dallas office in 1982. In 1984 I was transferred to Coopers & Lybrand’s D.C. office to manage the audit of the D.C; Government.”
Mr. Gardiner says when he was asked to transfer to Coopers & Lybrand’s D.C’ office, he told them that he wanted to start my own firm and they told him that if he agreed to the transfer, they would “give me some work to help my firm get started, provided I stayed at least two years and trained my successor.”
“I stayed with C&L for three more years, during which time I sat and passed the CPA exams,” Gardiner says. “I left in 1987 to start my firm, and C&L gave me a contract for $250K worth of work to help me get off the ground. I owe much to C&L. They trained me, educated me and helped me start my firm.”
Both the firm and Gardiner have received commendations from the Mayor and City Council of the District of Columbia for services rendered to the city, and from several Federal Government Agencies, including the U.S. Department of Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Nowadays, Gardiner, who is a published author and playwright, mainly spends his time “doing more writing and less civic engagement” while his eldest son, Michael, a CPA, “is an owner in my firm, but I remain chair of the Advisory Board of the DC Health Benefit Exchange.” His other son, Kevin, is an attorney with the D.C. Government, and “I have a grandson on his way to college, and a two-year-old granddaughter.”
“God is good and I am more blessed than I deserve,” Gardiner says.
