Amanda Sousa joined the accounts department of American International on May 4, 1964 six months after the birth of her last child. The company's offices at the time were located on Pitt's Bay Road, in a little cottage opposite the Bermudiana Hotel on Woodbourne Avenue. The accounts and payroll department were upstairs, with the administration office downstairs.

Ms Sousa was hired as a clerk-typist. In those days, financial statements were produced on a typewriter, with eight carbon copies. All vouchers were handwritten, and payroll cheques were delivered to staff bi-weekly.

After a time, Ms Sousa advanced to book-keeping, manually posting in two ledgers, using a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. One ledger was maintained in Pounds, Shillings and Pence (the old British system), and the other was kept in US Dollars.

In 1970, the use of the Bermuda Pound was discontinued in favour of the Bermuda Dollar, which has since been on a par with the US Dollar. Ms Sousa said that she took great pride in her ledgers and was often complimented by auditors as to how neat and tidy they were.

In her almost 44 years of employment with the American International companies, Ms Sousa has witnessed numerous changes in staff, work systems, buildings and renovations, and the advent and increasing sophistication of computers and technology.

Her work as an accounts assistant has been "very busy but never boring". She has enjoyed the company of all the colleagues she has worked with and always preferred being a "working person", rather than a careerist.

She described American International as "an excellent company to work for", one which has treated her well, without ever producing any feeling of insecurity that the group might leave Bermuda.

Having worked for American International for almost three-quarters of its 60 years in Bermuda, Ms Sousa said she is "grateful for its success, proud to have worked here and enjoyed being a team member."