Singapore's pioneer civil servant J.Y.Pillay speaks

J.Y. Pillay (b. 30 March 1934, Klang, Malaya) is one of the pioneers who helped build the Singapore economy after its separation from Malaysia in 1965. His single most significant contribution is in building Singapore Airlines (SIA) into a leading world-class carrier. One of the few highest-ranked Civil Service officers (Staff Grade III), he is also known as a visionary and a brilliant bureaucrat.

Pillay had his early education at St John's Institution in Kuala Lumpur. He completed his tertiary education at the University of London's Imperial College of Science and Technology, where he obtained a first class honours in Engineering in 1956. After working in the United Kingdom and Malaya for a few years, he came to Singapore to work in the Ministry of Finance in 1961.

Despite its small size and lacking any natural resources, the success story of this island nation of 4 million people is a remarkable one.

In a series of talks organised by The Straits Times and the EDB Society, Singapore's economic and policy pioneers are talking about their experience. The first two speakers were Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Tamasek Holdings chairman S. Dhanabalan.

Mr. Pillay took centre stage at the Pioneer talks Series dialogue on Monday in the old parliament house.

In the wide-ranging discussion, the private man who rarely gives interviews, touched on his time in the civil service and his move into the private sector.

The former Chairman of SIA also shared candidly his views on how the present generation of Singaporeans could learn from their predecessors in confronting new frontiers.

He said: "You must have guts, a little bit of guts. To me, it hasn't changed from the time of Adam. The environment has changed. So, each generation has to figure out its salvation as it goes along."

Unlike his generation, today's young have not experienced the shock of the Japanese Occupation and other shocks in subsequent decades, said Mr Pillay, who turns 74 on March 30.

'These are the people who should read all these books that are being written on Singapore's history, the past 50 years. Unfortunately, they don't. That's the way with youngsters. They are looking too much to the future - which is good - not so much backward,' he said in response to Straits Times reader Jonathan Chee at the EDB Society-Straits Times Pioneers seminar yesterday.