He has been working since he was 14 years old, and after having passed through six establishments, he decided that it was time for him to create his own business. So going on his own was a transition in more ways than one.

Lascelle Arnold started out as a laborer at Hofius earning $15 weekly for cleaning the shop, stocking shelves, and unpacking trucks. He left Wesley School having gotten a 29 percentile on the Belize National Selection Examination, and his dad sent him out to work.

"When I got paid, I gave my mother $10, kept a couple for myself and saved $3," he recalled.

He said that his mother encouraged him to always save a portion of his earnings. She opened a credit union account for him, and he continued the practice of putting a portion of his earnings away into his adult life.

Lascelle is the second eldest of six siblings. His father, Gilbert Arnold, was a carpenter and construction worker. He was a disciplinarian, and it was he who taught his boys, including Lascelle, about hard labor. He also learned a bit of business from his mother, because he helped out at his mom’s place, Val’s Pastry Shop, also on Dean Street.

Being a member of the Boy’s Brigade, Lascelle also learned a lot of discipline. The drill sergeant, said Arnold, was Crispin Jeffries, Sr., who is now Assistant Commissioner of the Police Department.

His father urged him to leave the job at Hofius and learn a trade, so he went to work with Basil Bernard, who had a welding shop, for about a year. He next went to work at Bob Thurton’s machine shop.

Lascelle Arnold said that he learned to build things, but moreover, he got to meet some very influential people like Barry Bowen, Charles Chevannes, Ismael Gomez of Belize Flour Mills and Evan X Hyde of Amandala. He recalled Bowen spending hours sitting beside him as he worked on his jobs. Bowen would talk about his business experience and Arnold listened and learned.

He left Thurton at the age of 16 and went to work at Bom Gardiner’s machine shop, where he worked for another few years. It was while holding this job that he learned to drive. Arnold recollects that he learned to maneuver at two miles an hour sitting behind the wheel of a stone crusher.

The job taught him about boats, generators, plumbing, and the like. His experience inspired thoughts of having his own machine shop, but he realized that he could not afford to.

Next Arnold went to work for his relative, Wilhelm Arnold, a self-made millionaire who at the time owned Fairview Window Factory, where they made aluminum and glass doors and windows. He was appointed foreman and worked seven days a week, managing Wilhelm Arnold’s farm on the weekends. By this time, at the age of 20, he was earning $125 to $150 a week.

Lascelle and Dolores talked about getting their own property and building a home. Jean Shaw, proprietor of Mopan Hotel, told them about some 60′ by 90′ lots she had to sell on the Western Highway for $1,500 each. They both got one and paid down $500. They made an additional 27 payments of $42 monthly and started building in suburban Belize City "a block at a time." When the building was almost complete, they got a credit union loan to finish their first home. Arnold said that he and his wife spent many Saturdays at Jean Shaw’s home, listening to her real estate advice.

After his stint with Fairview, Lascelle went to work for Barney Isaacs. Lascelle said that by that time he had already decided to open his own machine shop. From his earnings each week he bought items that he knew he would need for his business.

During the last week of his tenure with Isaacs he purchased his welding machine from Belize Distributors. In December he pulled together his bonus and holiday pay, his week?s pay and a one-month vacation pay from his then girlfriend, Dolores (now his wife), to purchase the machine.

His first job came from the Belize Adventist Mission, where Dolores worked at the time. He said that he got a call from her informing him that he had a job to build some doors and windows for a house the mission had purchased. He got this job during the Christmas holidays and towards the end of his vacation, he went back to tell Isaacs that he would be venturing out on his own, but that he would be willing to continue helping when he could.

He first went into business in 1981, the same year Belize got its Independence. The jobs were slow in coming, but instead of taking a passive approach to things he decided to build ovens, garbage bins, and other items, and found clients to buy them. At start up, he had two workers – Evan Clother, one of the guys from the Dean Street base, and another named Kentie.

Arnold’s Welding Service began downstairs of his mother’s home on Dean Street. He recalls getting a lot of help from Salvador Habet on Basra Street. Arnold said that Habet spoke to him about running a business and strategies to be able to pay his bills on time.

The next challenge was for Arnold to get his own premises to do his business, but in 1985, slow business and increased family commitments, including the birth of his only daughter, Christine, triggered a stint of employment in the United States, where he worked for two years with Eastman and Sons Federal Boilers, which used to build huge boilers for generating heat and power at high-rise apartment buildings.

Here he was going through another transition, not just because he was going away on a new personal mission, but because that same year, before his departure for the U.S., he had a chance to listen to Islamic leader, Louis Farrakhan, speak at Bird’s Isle. He said that Farrakhan?s eye-opening message boosted his self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

In the U.S. Lascelle worked for a salary of US$1,500 weekly with shifts as long as 36 hours, and sent all that money home, because the tips were big enough to live on. In New York, where he worked, he shared a one-bedroom apartment with his brother, and helped him to pay the bills with his earnings. Some of the money was used to repay the credit union loan in Belize.

So why leave all that money behind and return home where he was struggling with his business? Arnold said that he realized that if he worked as hard as he did in the U.S., he would make as much money for himself. The purpose of going away to work, he said, was to get capital to finance his business and the agreement with the U.S. company was only for two years.

His wife and daughter joined him a year later. On his return in 1986, the business climate was still not favorable, so he partnered with his ex-mother-in-law, Rosalie Bevans. The business was renamed Arnold and Bevans Welding Service. A subsequent rift in the partnership caused him to revert to his former enterprise, Arnold Security Welding.

While in the United States, Arnold mulled over new ideas, one of them being a laundromat. Since he was there without his wife for a year, he made regular trips to the laundromat to wash his clothes.

On his return he and his wife, who previously worked at the Belize Telecommunications Limited, looked for a business location for the laundromat. They looked at the three main bridges and felt that a location around Cemetery Road/Dolphin Street would make a good spot. That is where Arnold’s second enterprise, Belize Dry Cleaners Laundromat and Tuxedo Rentals, is located today.

The business germinated from a fertilized idea. The Arnolds purchased the equipment from their money and the bank gave a $390,000 loan at 15% interest for the building.

They began with dry cleaning services on December 18, 1989. In 1993, they got a 5-year contract to do laundry services for the Old Belize City Hospital. They began doing the hospital laundry downstairs of his mother’s home on Dean Street, but a second floor was added to the building to accommodate this expansion in the business. The subsequent government renewed the contract for a 10-year term, which expires in 2008.

In 2002 Belize Dry Cleaners added tuxedo rentals to its name. The building is today expanded to four floors, housing all sections.

The greatest challenges, said Lascelle Arnold, have been to get the right people in place to do the job. In his business, workers have to learn to multi-task, since jobs in some areas, such as tuxedo rentals, were seasonal.

We?ve learned that there are many other sides to this businessman. During the 1980?s he was one of Belize?s brightest track and field athletes. His long jump distance is 25 feet; he claims it is a record that still stands today. At the age of 23 he broke Sonny Meighan?s 1968 record of 22 feet 10 inches at the Sunday Sports Spectacular in 1983. His first international experience was in the Miami Derby in 1983, when he placed second in the long jump and third in the 100 meters sprint. Lascelle said that were it not for unfortunate circumstances the following year, he could have made it to the Olympics in 1984.

In 1989 he was also tops in beach volleyball, having placed second in the first ever beach volleyball tourney on Caye Chapel.

A former vice president of the Athletic Association, Lascelle Arnold recalls working with then president, David Craig, shortly after Independence to start the building of the National Stadium, now the Marion Jones Sporting Complex.

He recalled having a track team, No Hope in Dope – Natural High, which included athletes from Wesley College and Technical College.

He was drafted to be on the National Volleyball Team, representing Belize in Costa Rica. The team lost, but came back home having learned new techniques in the game, which Arnold said helped them to take the game in Belize to another level.

He also recalled playing football with Happy Home Builders.

Lascelle Arnold demonstrated his philanthropic spirit when he sponsored Cross Country Champion, Michael Lewis, under the banner of Arnold’s Welding Service. Even today, he sponsors community events, at times supplying tuxedos for escorts. He also sponsors and helps to raise funds for children who need care at Shriners Hospital in Texas.

Arnold is also recognized as a community activist, as one of the founders for the Cash for Guns program in the 1990?s, and a lead activist in CAPU – the Committee for Action on Public Utilities, the formidable force of influential Belizeans who confronted the Belize Telecommunications with a series of massive public demonstrations calling on the company to roll back unilaterally imposed phone rates imposed in defiance of a Government stop order.

Arnold stays actively engaged in public debate. He said that he engineered the first television talk show in Belize. In the late 1990’s, One on One with Dickie Bradley, a current ruling party Senator, began airing on Channel 5. Arnold said that he came up with the idea, discussed it with Dickie and within three days was able to sell the idea to Stewart Krohn, the station?s owner.

Today Arnold is a regular caller on a range of morning talk shows. He proclaims himself to be both a nationalist and an activist and says participating in public discourse is his way of contributing ideas for Belize?s betterment.

Arnold, who attends the Adventist Church, said he thanks God for all his blessings, as well as his trials.

Among his celebrated accomplishments was winning a ribbon medal and a cash prize for building the longest bike in the world, he claims, that one man could ride. The 17-foot bike was unveiled in the Independence parade of 1982, he told us.