Passion pushes Humori to the top

By GYNNIE KERO
A YOUNG man’s passion to pursue a career in the motor industry helped push him past obstacles.
Robin Humori, like many youths his age at the time, dropped out of St Xavier’s High School, on Kairiru Island in East Sepik, after completing year 10 in 1990.
The school was then run by Marist Brothers who taught him a few things about what being a mechanic was.
He decided it was something he wanted to pursue.
Without a proper farewell, he left his family behind at Hambuge, in the Yangoru-Saussia district, in 1992 and bought himself an airline ticket to Mt Hagen for K71. Humori wanted to start anew in Mt Hagen which became home to him for the next 32 years.
“I decided to go to Hagen because no one knew me there so I could change. In 1992 I arrived in Hagen. I hung around with strangers mostly the jobless,” he said.
“Then I joined a commercial training school where I took up business, sales and marketing. My sister sent my school fees of K700. It was for a six-month training.
“I worked for a company before joining Brian Bell.”
But he said it was not what he wanted.
“I wanted to own a car. In 1993, the owner of Tega Wreckers took me in. It was a small wreck yard near Kagamuga. Then, I didn’t care what the job was.
“I didn’t tell him my professional background in sales and marketing.
“I was paid K20 fortnightly. K10 I gave to the people I was living with and K10 for my pocket. I never left the company.
“The owner thought K20 would make me leave.
“But I was ambitious to get behind the wheel.”
Humori became a manager and helped the company grow.
“For 17 years I ran that company. I was awarded the best local manager in 2010,” he said.
“I was proud of my achievement. Growing a business from a very small company to where it is now.
“I walked out with a pen in my pocket shirt after I resigned. I know I was able to make money at home.”
With a wife and four children, he decided it was time to return home to East Sepik.
“I told my boss I came with nothing and will go home with nothing,” he said.
“The day we were supposed to leave, we had a small dinner. All directors of the company were there to farewell me.
“The company owner was from Western Highlands. Unexpectedly they made me a director of the company.”
It was a double blessing.
“They told me to go home, find a place and they will come and set me up. I have a place and people I call family every time I go to Mt Hagen.”
His eldest daughter was born in Mt Hagen on Nov 4, 1998.
In 2014, he returned to his hometown in Wewak where he is running a spare parts shop called Mr Parts.
On why he wanted to return home after all these years, Humori said he wanted “to be close to my parents who I had left for too long”.