Self-made man loved Thailand

OBITUARY: BOB KEVORKIAN

Bangkok Post
Friday 29 April 2005

BY BILL CONDIE

There is a shocked disbelief around the business community over the
death on Tuesday morning of Bob der Kevorkian, chief executive of K-Tech
construction and one of Bangkok’s best-loved figures.

Bob was simply always there, always willing to help anyone in trouble
and always able to solve the knottiest problem with a phone call or two.
It is hard to believe that now he is gone.

His was a remarkable story of a self-made man who came to love Thailand
and call it home, and Thailand in its turn loved him back.

Born Norair der Kevorkian in 1942 to Armenian parents in Cairo, but a
British citizen, he was thrown out of the country during the Suez
crisis, arriving with his father in London with just the clothes on
their backs and 10 in their pockets.

Not an easy man to keep down, Bob became a civil engineer and worked in
Britain for big construction companies including Wimpey and Trafalgar
House. But he did not reach his stride until he became vice-president of
overseas operations for Bauer, then purely a German business. Bob was to
change all that, opening Bauer offices one by one across the Middle East
and Asia.

He arrived in Bangkok in 1989 and immediately felt at home. Thailand, he
said, was always welcoming, something he never forgot.

He quickly became known as a man of vision and extraordinary
capabilities. When everyone said a subway system could never be built in
Bangkok’s muddy sub-soil, Bob said it could _ and became the driving
force in pushing the government to believe it. He was, of course, proved
right in the end.

But the crowning glory to Bob’s amazing career was the establishment of
his own company, K-Tech Construction, at the depths of the financial
crisis. He drove that company through appalling trading conditions to
its SET listing last year and earned a lasting legacy with a turnover of
$100 million a year.

But while business was important to Bob, and while he was exceptionally
good at it, family and friends were even more important. He was a loving
husband to wife Linda and father to his five children: Dominic, Greg,
Gina, Liza and little Sam.

Once again, Bob and Linda confirmed their love for and commitment to
Thailand setting up Baan Nor Giank, a home for children affected or
infected with HIV/Aids, and treating those kids as part of their family.

Proud of his Armenian roots, he became that country’s Honorary Consul to
Thailand in 1997.

With K-Tech arranged as a public company and designed to run without his
formidable presence, he turned more and more to the diplomatic duties he
took so seriously.

But while K-Tech and the Kevorkian Foundation will go on in his absence,
there are many who wonder how they will cope on a personal level without
him.

There will be a service at the Holy Redeemer Church, Soi Ruamrudee, this
morning at 10:30, and Bob will be buried in Armenia on the weekend.

The family has requested no flowers, but donations can be made to the
Kevorkian Foundation, which runs Baan Nor Giank. That would have been
Bob’s wish.