52 year old Reid, was born in Trinityville, St. Thomas, and attended the Excelsior High School in Kingston, before she became a front office trainee at the Half Moon hotel in Montego Bay in 1978.

Her previous job was a general manager of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, but as the President’s Executive Residence and Chief usher, she will be responsible for executive residence activities, as well as operations on the executive residence grounds. Reid will liaise with the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, the US Commission on Fine Arts and other entities to preserve the People’s House.

The Chief usher is said to be a ‘quaint’ title for a very demanding position. Reid will oversee day-to-day operations at the president’s home, a 132-room mansion with a staff of more than 90 people ranging from plumbers and electricians to butlers and cooks. She’ll cater to everyone from A-list guests at state dinners to throngs of kids at the annual Easter egg roll.

Kudos to this Jamaican go-getter.

At the age of 13, while attending the Alexandria Secondary School in St. Ann, Green became pregnant. For many young women, this would have meant the beginning of the end; but for her, it was just the beginning, as she got a second lease on life and made very good use of it.

After having her baby, Green went to the Women’s Crisis Centre, and after attending classes for six months, she went to Brown’s Town Secondary and completed grades 10 and 11. After that, she went to the Brown’s Town Community College where she completed several subjects.

Throughout this time, Green had to do domestic work in order to take care of her child and to sustain herself throughout. Thankfully, her mother (although she was upset about the early pregnancy) offered encouragement and was very supportive of her, and so too were her teachers.

She continued to strive to prove to herself that she was not a failure, and started in the HEART/Trust NTA’s on-the-job training programme, which landed her at Charley’s Windsor House in Brown’s Town. She worked there for three years while awaiting a call from the Jamaica Constabulary Force. The call eventually came in 1997.

After being posted at the Mobile Reserve, then Trelawny, and then the St. Catherine South divisions, Green was still not satisfied. She headed back to school, to the Northern Caribbean University (NCU), where she completed a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and graduated in 2009.

Even still, she yearns for more. Kudos to Policewoman Shermin Green, for taking her trials, and turning them into triumph.

Brown, a graduate of Montego Bay High School, will begin an intensive course this month (January 2010), taking lessons from various international relations and public policy experts, including Madeleine Albright herself (a former US secretary of state and a member of the Wellesley College class of 1959).

Brown is one of just 40 students selected to participate in the Institute’s inaugural year, and later this summer she will participate in a Wellesley-funded internship in the United States or abroad – with the goal being to apply what she has learned in a real-life setting. She is currently a political science and Spanish double major, with a strong interest in serving in the Jamaican diplomatic corps one day.

Through the Institute, she hopes that she will be able to delve deeper into issues such as gender equality, international development and poverty eradication – all perennial concerns for developing countries such as her homeland, Jamaica.

Kudos to Danielle Brown, a Jamaican star shining brightly now and for the future.