A 22-year-old man who is determined to change his life and serve as an example to young Bermudians recently took home two top insurance scholarships.

Gino Smith is a young man from a single-parent household who pack-raced as a teenager and had to repeat his third year in high school.

But when two of his close friends died in road traffic accidents, Mr. Smith began to recognise the value of life and the importance of making correct decisions.

"I made a decision that the things I was doing was leading to a self-destructive path, and I realised that what you do in this world is totally dependent upon you,'' he said.

Mr. Smith graduated from the Berkeley Institute with honours in 1994. He then worked for the Bank of Bermuda for two years and took night courses at the Bermuda Insurance Institute.

He began studying at the Bermuda College in 1996 and was awarded the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies Local Scholarship -- which carries a value of $2,500 for two years.

Mr. Smith graduated with distinction from Bermuda College -- achieving a 3.6 cumulative grade point average -- and will be studying at the College of Insurance in New York this fall.

And the prospect of studying became sweeter for Mr. Smith when he won both the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies Scholarship and the EXEL Insurance Scholarship.

The total value of the two scholarships will provided full tuition, fees and airline tickets for the top achiever.

Mr. Smith, who is also an officer in the Bermuda Regiment, encouraged other young people to overcome obstacles to achieve long-term success.

"You can't expect a handout.. .stop talking about what you want to do and do it,'' he said.

"I'm from a single-parent home -- my parents can't afford to send me to college. But I was saving money and I would've gone to college even if I hadn't gotten the scholarships.'' "People are always looking to help people who want to help themselves,'' he added.

Mr. Smith will be delivering an address at the Bermuda College convocation Monday at 12.30 p.m.

Gino Smith