Local know-how drives
56
BB Marine Engineering
J
irawat “Beer” Kuramakanok is the eldest sibling of a third generation Thai-Chinese family and he runs BB Marine Engineering, located in Phuket Town. The company has about 25 employees, all of whom have been with the company for awhile. They are skilled and dependable and form part of an extended BB family. BB does not outsource its work; Beer uses all his own employees, so he knows full well what they are capable of and what they can deliver on a job.
Beer’s paternal grandfather immigrated, Chiw Hor Sae-Chua, to Nakhon Si Thammarat from Chaozhou, China, eighty years ago. That’s where he met Beer’s paternal grandmother, Lun Sae-Chua. The two met, married and Beer’s father (Thanawat) was born soon after. The couple ran an ice-making and delivery company there. As was Chinese tradition at the time, young men left home quite early to make their way in the world. Beer’s dad traveled around southern Thailand, working in numerous
