After a career spent dedicated to MarPac, Jean Sablan is ready to retire.
By Andrew Roberto
BY the time this news article is shared with island residents and Marianas Variety readers the world over, Jean Sablan, Marianas Pacific’s assistant operations manager, will be officially checking in for the last time at the office that she’s called home for the last 46 years.
One day before International Women’s Day, Sablan, who began working for MarPac in 1979, says it’s time to shift that same drive and focus that propelled her to success on to her grandchildren.
“For a few years I’ve been saying, ‘This is the year I retire.’ But, really, this year, I feel it. It’s time to retire and enjoy my grandkids,” Sablan tells Marianas Variety. “I have grandchildren but they’re all off island. I want to go off island with my husband and visit them. I want to spend as much time as I want with them, not to hurry back to work.”
She even jokes that at this point she can still chase after her little ones without using a cane.
Sablan’s longstanding commitment to the company is an achievement in and of itself, made even more impressive considering the fact that MarPac, the CNMI’s exclusive distributor of Budweiser and other fine products, has been in operation for 52 years. It’s truly a company she’s helped build from the ground up.
Sablan recalls that the islands were completely different in the ’70s. Back then the area currently surrounding MarPac’s Gualo Rai’s warehouse and office space was all dense jungle.
The business itself was much smaller when Sablan began her time with MarPac as an accounting clerk. Her official title was not a full description of her duties, which involved so much more.
“There were three of us in the office,” she says. “We were doing everything. I was receptionist, I was accounting, I did inventory. We were tele-sales ladies. We called stores checking if they needed anything. But we worked right beside the bosses—the Shimizu family.”
In past interviews with the Marianas Variety, such as when we featured her as the MarPac Employee of the Year or highlighted her longtime employment, Sablan has always been grateful for the leadership displayed by the Shimizu family.
“They were such good bosses from the beginning,” she says.
Characteristically, Sablan is grateful for the environment they set up at MarPac.
“What I liked about this company is it’s family-owned, and the environment and policies are fair, with equal treatment for everyone in the company,” she says. Sablan adds that the compensation and benefits program are “attractive and competitive.”
But the defining quality of MarPac in her view has been how well she’s been treated as an employee. Sablan stressed that the company rewards promotions based on merit.
“Gender equality and fair and equal treatment—that’s what kept me for 46 years with this company,” she says. “I was equal with men. If it was possible for me to move up before the men, they moved me up. The rewards are based on merit, not based on gender.”
In MarPac resident manager Guy Pudney’s eyes, Sablan, who holds decades of institutional knowledge, is “like a mother” to the deliverymen and warehouse staff she oversees. However, although kindly and fair, she also shows tough love when necessary.
“She didn’t take any crap from anybody. She laid down the law,” Pudney says of Sablan. “For her, since she was in the manager position, her job didn’t involve her being physical. But it did require her to be a leader.”
When asked if she has any advice to women who want to have careers, she says it’s important to “stay strong” in the workplace, and to uplift other women. She also says that female friends outside of work have been a source of her strength.
“We’re close-knit and we help each other stay up,” she says. “Women friendship is good because you can uplift each other. We talk about our problems and they give me advice or give me moral support.
Sablan, who has four children, says she experienced the “working mom” life of dropping the kids to school and still making it to work on time, as well as taking them to after-school activities all over the island.
Jean Sablan, poses with the plaque she received for winning MarPac’s 2023 Employee of the Year award. She is photographed next to Saleman of the Year Chris Nunez.
She says that if women are inclined to, they can have a career and a family as well, and that those things are not mutually exclusive or hindrances to each other.
“Women—they wear many hats,” she says. “They’re mothers, wives, mentors, counselors, just to name a few. That’s what women can do. We can balance our life and work. My advice to young women is believe in yourself and strive for your goals and stay focused.”
As she retires, she remains thankful to God, her husband, Norbert Sablan, her children, the Shimizu family, and her MarPac coworkers “whom I will miss dearly.”
“Jean, enjoy your retirement—you’ve earned it,” Pudney said. “We love you and we’re going to miss you.”
Tom Shimizu, general manager of Ambrose Inc., parent company of MarPac, had this to say: “Jean, thank you, thank you, thank you! It has been a pleasure working with you, and I am so honored to have been there for 33 of the 46 years. Enjoy your retirement; you deserve it! Please remember: You are family and are always welcome here.”
Pudney confirms that MarPac is throwing her a retirement luncheon, and that the Shimizu family will be on island to present Sablan with a service award.
