His real name is Antonio Lewis, but everybody on St. John knows him best as Pumpkin. And what with Hurricane Earl and Tropical Strom Otto recently dumping deluges on the island, as Innovative’s service foreman on St. John, he’s the go-to guy when it comes to solving phone, cable TV and DSL outages.
“With Otto, we had a lot of landslides. Three poles were down – two in Coral Bay, one in Bordeaux,” he said.
Otto as well as Earl caused a lot of water damage to Innovative’s equipment, but Lewis said the 10 months tree-trimming company Asplundh spent on St. John trimming vegetation around telephone lines helped prevent most of the lines from going down in the storms.
Last week, Lewis had 86 people on the list waiting for telephone repairs and 56 needing cable TV help. No DSL customers were out.
“That’s how big my headache is,” he said, busy answering phones and solving problems from his office in Innovative’s trailer in Cruz Bay.
It might be a headache, but Lewis said he enjoys his job. He said he likes making decisions and he really enjoys solving customers’ problems.
Even under normal conditions, Lewis finds plenty of challenges in his job.
“We live in a beautiful place but the biggest enemy is salt. Salt causes corrosion and corrosion causes shorts, which cause your telephone not to work,” he said.
While most island residents know this annoying fact of life, Lewis said that many among those who built vacation villas in recent years don’t understand the vagaries of life in the tropics. They also expect instant repairs, which Lewis said just doesn’t happen.
“They’d have to wait in the states,” he said, adding that some of them are downright rude to Lewis and his crew.
Lewis doesn’t play favorites when it comes to getting on the top of the repair list, but he said that if you’re a senior citizen you will have an edge.
After working at the Moore Veterinary Clinic and for contractor Burnup & Sims Inc., he joined Innovative, then VITELCO, 15 years ago as a lineman/digger. He took over as supervisor just over a year ago.
He oversees a staff of 11 line crew members, splicers and installers.
“I’d put my staff up against anyone anywhere,” he said, speaking about their expertise.
Lewis commutes to St. John on the 5:30 a.m. ferry from Red Hook, St. Thomas. He was no stranger to St. John, however, since he lived as a child with his aunt, Raphael Smith, in her house next to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Cruz Bay. He went to school on St. Thomas, attending Joseph Gomez School and Bertha Boschulte Junior High School before spending a year at Eudora Kean High School. He went off to stay with a cousin in Providence, R.I. to attend North Providence High School and study two years at the University of Rhode Island before returning home.
Now 40, he’s married to Khania Lewis. They’re the parents of Amaya, age 1 year and 3 months. When he’s not on the job or spending time with his family, he said he plays dominos with friends.
He has a family history with Innovative. His mother, Eloise Smith, has been a service representative on St. Thomas for 30 years.
As for that nickname Pumpkin, he won’t say.
“My aunt gave it to me,” is his only answer.
