Before Michael Fountain became a diplomat, he was a kid on Chicago’s West Side, growing up in Austin, which would leave a lasting mark on the person he would become. Decades later, that connection to the West Side remains with him.
Today, Fountain serves as the honorary consul of The Bahamas in Chicago, a position he has held since 2014. His jurisdiction covers Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin, where he represents the interests of this Caribbean country and helps connect people and businesses between the midwest and The Bahamas through tourism, trade, investment and economic development.
Fountain, whose father was Bahamian, described himself as a product of Chicago’s West Side, having been born and raised at 5055 W. Ferdinand St.
“Our formative years are what plant the seeds,” he said. “They’re what take root in you in terms of ultimately who you’re going to be and what you’re always going to refer back to in times of trouble and distress: your grounding, your platform, your foundation, your infrastructure. I take those roots and that heritage very seriously.”
His family moved out of the Austin neighborhood when he was 10, following a shooting. They eventually settling near the University of Illinois on South Ashland Avenue. His experiences growing up on Chicago’s West Side, he said, shaped how he approaches relationships and service, skills that have carried into his diplomatic career.
“My job is to make sure that people who want to know what it means to do business in The Bahamas are able to do so in an expedited manner. I’m here to open doors and make sure that opportunities flow both ways: opportunities for Bahamians in Chicago and opportunities for Chicago businesspeople who want to make life better for Bahamians in The Bahamas,” Fountain said.
Fountain is Bahamian on his father’s side and American on his mother’s side. He attended Our Lady Help of Christians Resurrection School, which closed in 1998 in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. He described his career and experiences as deeply rooted in Chicago, having represented the Chicago Transit Authority and worked for Ameritech, Navy Pier and ComEd.
When asked how he first became interested in The Bahamas and eventually became its honorary consul in Chicago, Fountain said he wanted to better understand his Bahamian heritage and family history. He traveled to The Bahamas, where he reunited with his father and met other relatives who shared their stories with him.
“My Bahamian father was not there when we were growing up. The only reference we had to The Bahamas was a picture of my Aunt Brenda, who was Miss Bahamas in 1968,” Fountain said.
Brenda Fountain was crowned Miss Bahamas 1968 and represented the country at the Miss Universe pageant held in Miami Beach.
“So I understood that there was a connection, but the way I grew up, as a Black kid from the West Side, you don’t yearn for the things that you don’t have,” Fountain said.
Instead, he learned to focus on getting things done and adapting to whatever circumstances came his way.
“My mother wanted us to have a private school education. We didn’t have the money. So when that bill came due from time to time, we had to move on and go somewhere else and that’s what I wound up doing,” Fountain said. “But those diplomatic principles were in me early because I never wanted to be the new kid. I didn’t want to blend in. I wanted to have a platform and an identity that was separate from being the new kid.”
Attending different schools taught him how to build connections, find common ground with others and establish his own identity.
He said those skills eventually became valuable in his work as a legislative professional and lobbyist consultant, and later as a diplomat. In these roles, he relied on his upbringing to build relationships, to understand where people were coming from and to find common ground.
“I started to figure out who I could talk to, who I could associate myself with, what connections we had and what things we had in common and pretty quickly, it turned into a skill. That skill helped me after college as a legislative professional and lobbyist consultant,” Fountain said.
Those early experiences, he said, continue to influence how he approaches relationships and builds connections as a diplomat.
“I’ve had situations where there were Bahamians who were incarcerated. One man had been lost in the system and we had to find out where he was when he was being transported from one facility to another,” Fountain said.
He has also helped Bahamians who needed medical care while incarcerated, including one man at a federal facility who was becoming increasingly ill after not receiving a needed surgery. He also helped located a missing Bahamian man and assisted Bahamians who were detained at the airport during the pandemic over vaccination records.
“So being able to serve in that way has been important. Now, I’m making the shift into what it means to be an active and working diplomat in the modern world, and what diplomacy means in terms of its dividing line between war and peace,” Fountain said.
Fountain has worked to strengthen connections between Chicago and The Bahamas by raising the Bahamian flag at O’Hare International Airport and Daley Plaza. He also helped establish a sister-city relationship with Richton Park, IL where the Bahamian flag flies over the municipal building.
“We raise awareness and talk about how great it is to come, visit and enjoy the warmth of our shores and the love of our people. We also want to make sure, again, that there’s an economic impact, that there are opportunities for growth and doing business. It is a place where you can not only enjoy yourself, but you can also get really great things done,” Fountain said.
He emphasized that The Bahamas is a place where people can both enjoy themselves and conduct business. He also works to provide expedited diplomatic access to countries across the Caribbean and around the world through The Bahamas’ network of diplomats.
“If I’m taking on the responsibility of making more diplomats, then I can think of no better way or no better place to do that than in Chicago representing The Bahamas,” Fountain said.