Elias was the youngest member of that family. He spent his boyhood in Rahbeh where he acquired his elementary education. At the same time he lent hand to his parents in the farm, as was customary during those days. However to young Elias the town of his birth and his inherited lot, were no match for that vague ambition which boiled within his young mind. At the age of eighteen he figured that military service would satisfy his ambition. He actually joined the Lebanese Army, against his parents’ wishes. They rightly believed that Elias was too ambitious to be confined to a routine job, and too unruly to comply with strict military rules. Luckily however, the episode lasted for a very brief period of time, at the end of which Elias backed up, this time to the great pleasure of his parents. Elias was married to Mariana Nassar, also a citizen of Rahbeh, they had one girl HOUDA and three boys ASSAAD,GEORGE and AHED. In a subsequent move he got a job with (IPC ) “THE IRAQI PETROLIUM COMPANY” whose terminal offices were established near the Mediterranean seaport city of Tripoli. At (IPC) he earned a good salary which was exceptionally high for the job that Elia’s education entitled him to occupy. However Elias’s wits and his serious attitude at work, supplemented by the fact that he attended the Company’s night school at the end of a full days work, must have made up for his elementary education. Once again ambition came to play, in young Elias’s head. He smelled the aroma of success coming from Rahbeh’s citizens who were then doing business in the Republic of Liberia, West Africa. Here again the lucrative salary he earned at (IPC) was not enough to allay his personal ambition, which most probably relates back to his Phoenician heritage, nor to outweigh the promise of success which loomed in the horizon, so without hesitation, Elias decided to immigrate to Liberia, where the story of his success began to unfurl. In Liberia he got a job, as warehouse keeper, with Rasamny Brothers, one of the main trading companies in the capital Monrovia. After a short period Elias, proved that he has a bent for salesmanship. Having proved this talent time and again, the management appointed him as one of its of salesmen. Thereafter, and not before long, Elias was promoted to the position of sales manager. Even with this success with the Rasamnies, Elias’s ambition kept nudging. This time he decided to establish his own business. To achieve this aim, with the least amount of risk, he imported his brother -in- law and his nephew, established his first store, and had them run it under his direction and supervision. Meanwhile he stuck to his job with the Rasamny’s for a while. This was the beginning of a business complex that Elias had built in and outside Liberia with the help, cooperation and unwavering dedication of his children Assad, George and Ahed. Finally, after seventy seven years of struggle, Elias EL- Haddad died on March 21st.2007, leaving behind (4) children, (11) grand children and (2) great grand children, plus a business complex of (11) independent business entities, which he named “ HADDAD GROUP INTERNATIONAL” Above all, he kept the family together in business, laid a solid foundation for continued cooperation between the brothers and their offspring, and by so doing he established a valuable example for other family businesses to emulate.