“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” Charles Darwin, considered the father of evolution, said these words.
British-born Singaporean Michael Gray is a living, breathing example of a man who likes to make every minute of his life count. The former seaman has, for more than four decades, not just served as independent director and chairman of the audit committees of multiple companies, he has dedicated his life to building Singapore’s social service sector. Although retired for the past 20 years, the octogenarian continues to serve on the board of a few charities and social service organisations.
He was born Michael Grenville Gray in Leeds, England—his mother was an archaeologist and his father worked in the tannery business. His early years were spent in a small hamlet not far from the sea called Downton—“a small Roman village but no Downton Abbey there”, he quickly clarifies. A career at sea seemed an obvious choice, having spent a good part of his childhood sailing with his father on his boat. At the age of 16, he took to a career at sea on cargo ships, travelling many times around the world, before moving on to larger cruise ships. He acquired a few certifications along the way, including his Second and First Mate’s, as well as BSc in Maritime Studies from University of Plymouth.
A chance meeting with Linda, a Malaysian-Chinese student of art at Plymouth, changed his life in more ways than one. She became his wife—49 years and counting—and mother of his two daughters—and Michael made the decision to switch careers to accounting, having been the treasurer for the student’s union at university.
“My seafaring days were an interesting time in my life, but things were not the same as for seafarers nowadays. The ships were different—there were no computers or calculators, we had to navigate by sextant when off shore and magnetic compass close to shore,” explains Michael. “We also had to deal with some of the roughest British crewmen you could imagine. It was a bit dangerous and not an easy life, especially if you were married.”
It’s not often that such a drastic career pivot turns out successfully, but Michael’s accounting career spanned some of the biggest auditing firms—Coopers & Lybrand and later at the merged firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, among others. He did have a bit of a rough start. He had applied to over 40 chartered accountant firms and was rejected. I was either that he didn’t have the right qualifications or “I was much older than the type of person they took in those days”. But that changed once Michael took his Chartered Accountant exams in 1977.
“I think I have been very fortuitous in my life, but I also had to work very hard. I am not one of those inteligencias,” says Michael. “I was married and I had a child to support—I had to study hard. I knew I had to pass.” And pass he did, at first attempt.
Michael’s life as a seafarer and later as an auditor has taken him across the seas and to many countries in the West and around Southeast Asia, and as chair to a number of top delegations. “One of the trade delegations I led to Cambodia almost 25 years ago had Arthur Tay [the Club’s CEO and Chairman] as one of the participants,” he muses. But his heart was captured and continues to belong to Singapore. “It’s one of the best decisions I made,” he says of becoming a citizen.
Michael obtained his Singapore citizenship about 30 years ago, but he had moved here with his family back in 1978. He has more insider stories to tell than most others born here—his experiences with Singapore’s pioneer generation as well as the people who made up the country’s social and communal fabric warrant a chapter of its own. “I have worked with a lot of politicians in Singapore—I was on the Government Parliamentary Committee for communications. One of the things that has impressed me is that Singapore politicians are very different to their Western counterparts—they put the people first and think long term.”
One of Michael’s most notable contributions to Singapore is to its social sector. His life as a volunteer started in the mid-1980s when the Community Chest (CS), the philanthropic arm of the Singapore Council of Social Service (SCSS), had just started. He was among eight others who had volunteered to check the budgets for the agencies associated with it. Michael went on to implement a training programme for volunteers, before being appointed to the board of the SCSS (later National Council of Social Service), where he served for 17 years.
It was one council meeting helmed by Dr Ee Peng Liang, CS’ founder, that threw Michael in the centre of it all. Dr Ee announced that the government had decided to move disabled services under SCSS’ purview, so there was the need to set up a committee. “And Mike will chair it”, he had announced. “I was astonished. I told him that I had never even seen a disabled person. But all he said was ‘okay, then you have one month to learn all about it and you will hold your first meeting’,” recalls Michael.
With him chairing the committee, they put together a disability plan and presented it to the Advisory Council on the Disabled. The report that emerged from it and the projects they implemented would change the entire landscape of disabled people in Singapore—from better accessibility, equal education opportunities, housing and employment opportunities, to complete integration into society.
Michael was also the founding President of Pave for 23 years, which is involved in domestic violence; and with the Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre for 38 years, eventually becoming its chairman. Michael’s charisma made him the point person at fundraisers—Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, then advisor to Ulu Pandan Citizen Consultative Committee, called him his “secret weapon” as he could bring in the money by just saying a few words of Hokkien.
Michael’s most demanding volunteering stint was as the first Secretary of the Meeting for the Singapore Grand Prix—more so, because he had just expected to be either an usher or waving a trackside flag. It was challenging, “particularly in the first year of 2008 as we only had six months to learn how to run a F1 race”, he says. In 2012, Michael was awarded the best Secretary of the Meeting for motor sports worldwide—the first of its kind. His secret? “Doing it the Singapore way with proper organisation and SOPs,” he laughs.
These are but some of the voluntary work and organisations filling up his CV, that continue to keep him busy. “It’s a matter of planning your life—instead of sitting back and watching TV all night,” shrugs Michael, when I ask him how he has managed family time with a successful career and a very active volunteering life.
“If you are just going to work and coming home every night, you are missing out in life. You learn so much when you volunteer. I would’ve known nothing about disability and what can be done about it, or social services.” A lot has changed in these sectors, but the work is not over yet, he adds.
Michael also manages to indulge in his first love—the sea. His first boating in Singapore was in the late 1970s when Coopers & Lybrand purchased a Grand Banks 32. He was a crew member on part of Uniquely Singapore’s Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race. Michael also had a 25ft Wellcraft, then a 58ft Princess yacht, bought in partnership with three others. The yacht was berthed at ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove. Now his 30ft Uttern berths in front of his ground floor apartment in Sentosa Cove. He enjoys taking his boat out with his family to the nearby islands and opening a bottle of wine—his youngest daughter, who shares his love for the water is often the “designated driver” for his drive home.
From being one of the earliest Caucasians in Singapore’s grassroots organisations to one of the few to have been Chairman or Deputy Chairman of a statutory board, Michael’s life has been a seamless assimilation with the country and its culture. Further proof? His Wellcraft boat was named Blur Sotong and his current Uttern is Blur Sotong Two.
The original article was published on the September/ October 24 issue of Longitude, ONE°15 Marina’s Club magazine. Read it here.
