The Iranian hostage crisis in the mid-seventies changed her life, but at 50, Sen. Lynda Milligan-Whyte is firmly entrenched in her third career choice and is playing the game with some heavy hitters in the business world.

Sen. Milligan-Whyte, who is back in the Government for the second time, is also taking an increasingly broader role in defining the limits of Bermuda's business world.

Her school motto was "Respice Finem'', Latin for "Keep the End in View'', and if anyone has seriously practised the Berkeley Institute code, it is Sen.

Milligan-Whyte.

She firmly believes that everyone must constantly set attainable goals in life.

Her's included four degrees from Queen's University in Ontario -- all after starting her first career and a family.

The Berkeley graduate was trained in Philadelphia as an X-Ray technician, and returned to Bermuda and worked at the TB Cancer & Health for five years. But after giving birth to her son, Jerome, she took time off from her career and enrolled in a Queen's University extension course through the Bermuda College.

The would-be college student topped the class in political philosophy and her professor urged her to go to university. He helped her make up her mind by approaching the Ministry of Education and securing her a scholarship.

"Within two weeks of getting my results, I was at Queen's,'' she said, noting how she bundled her husband and son off to Kingston, Ontario.

As a student, she fought the urge to quit the rigours of university, admitting it was surprisingly hard. Even back in the 1970s, Queen's provided residences for families and day care for children.

Sen. Milligan-Whyte obtained her B.A. in History in two years instead of three, had her B. Ed. by the third year, qualifying her to teach, and then used the last year of a four year scholarship to obtain a Masters degree in Public Administration or Government economics.

She returned as a teacher at Berkeley, but knew within a year that it was not for her. "I didn't go through all of what I had overcome to deal with what I perceived to be the problems with education in 1976,'' she reflected gingerly.

"I didn't have the tools to deal with it at the time.'' She wracked her brain to figure out how she could motivate students of the day, when the evidence pointed to serious indiscipline. She said it was her first look at some of the societal problems Bermuda is dealing with today. "I had one situation where I was given a history class where students were failing and seemed to be just waiting for their 16th birthday, to get out of school. Traditional methods of teaching did not work. So one day I asked them what they wished to discuss. They said "sex''. So we talked about sex. The next day they wanted to talk about death. This went on for weeks, until one day it was they who said they wanted to learn about history.'' She said her students wanted to discuss serious issues, such as career planning and earnings potential relative to education and career choices.

Career choice was very much on their teacher's mind too.

It was a few years later that two of the students arrived at her door at Queen's, where she had returned to work on a law degree. They said it was as a result of those discussions, that they applied, and had been accepted, to become students at Queen's.

Then on her second marriage, to current husband John, she had her mind set on concentrating on international law, the law of the sea, perhaps work at the United Nations, dealing with issues involving international disputes.

That all changed when Iran invaded the US Embassy, seized hostages, ignored and abandoned the practice of civil diplomacy and publicly taunted the US Government and tormented the vulnerable psyche of the US public.

"I realised that the international courts and organisations couldn't deal with such problems. I immediately switched my major. I realised there was no such thing as international law, because it had no teeth. I couldn't work in any organisation that had no teeth.'' She began studying business law, falling back on her earlier MPA degree. One of the courses in that MPA programme had required her to work at a Canadian bank, where the CEO asked her to develop a model that would analytically show how they should invest in specific foreign companies.

The bank liked the model so much, they used it.

Her law school days started off a little shakily, because she had to learn concepts that every Canadian knew about as a child, concepts such as income tax and the federal rovincial dichotomy which were foreign to Bermudians.

She said she needed to absorb a lot before she even began to learn actual Canadian law.

"It was challenging and it taught me that you can learn anything if you put your mind to it,'' she said.

She sidestepped the tendency for women law graduates to be slotted into family law and estate planning. She would only be a corporate lawyer and would only interview with a select group of firms.

But during her tenth interview in search of a firm to article with, she was looking across the desk knowing that again, it was not going well.

Standing up and extending her hand in the middle of the discussion, she thanked the partner for seeing her, noting that the discussion was going nowhere and there was no need to waste his time further.

"Sit down,'' he said. "You've got the job.'' After articling, she beat out 1,400 Canadian applicants for a research job with a firm that dealt with the stock market. But she always wanted to return home and have her own law firm. When she returned in 1983, she enjoyed working at Appleby, Spurling & Kempe for five years. She then joined in 1988 with her husband, and Mr. Orlando Smith, who had already been operating a firm here dealing with insurance and reinsurance.

Today, there are ten lawyers with the firm, two more that need to be hired and three law students working in the Christmas and summer programme. About 85 percent of the firm's business involves international business.

"We decided to focus on the international side of law, and bring into Bermuda some depth in the insurance and reinsurance and insolvency areas.'' Sen. Milligan-Whyte started the law journal, The Bermuda Bar Review, now published quarterly through The Bermuda Bar Association and circulated around the world. She is still the editor.

She has also written articles for the Journal of the Japanese Institute of International Business Law.

When she returned to Bermuda, with an internalised Canadian culture and view of the world that smacked of the Ontario liberalism of the day, Bermuda was for her, another world.

"I couldn't understand why Bermuda was so closed in 1983. Banks were so monolithic and did everything. There was a fear of the banks. I couldn't understand why we weren't encouraging, as a country, new industry here, like stockbroking and trusts.'' With her move to a seat in the Senate, she pushed for more interest in that type of business outlook. She sought to change policies that stunted business potential in areas such as trusts, and assisted in the initiative to open up new business avenues.

She was also involved in the establishment of First Bermuda Securities, the stock brokerage firm. She eventually sold her interest, because it was important to maintain her core business as a business law practitioner.

More recently, she was appointed to the council of the Bermuda Stock Exchange, an interesting development in a business environment that has been traditionally dominated by white males.

Now she is back in the Government and the Senate. She wants to provide input into the Government thinking on business, its future and the future of Bermuda.

And probably looking at many issues through the eyes of a businesswoman, she said there is concern about the incidence of crime and the attitudes of some young people. She believes that too many people are alienated in our society and it must be determined how they can be brought back into the mainstream.

She is aware of the increasing frustration in the community by some, especially those who depended on the construction industry. She does not believe however, that the Government should be seen as the panacea for societal ills. The Government can be a catalyst.

In terms of antisocial behaviour by young people, she said: "We have to come to terms with the fact that Government is not going to be the sole entity to solve this problem.

"If we continue to rely on Government to solve behavioural problems of young people, you are creating a psychological dependence.'' Sen. Lynda Milligan-Whyte.