Illustration by Douglas Jones

And if success in the corporate world is to be judged by growth, and growth attributed to effective leadership, then Alberta’s business leaders are doing a pretty good Mark Messier imitation. Revenues are up across the board on both the Venture 100 and Next 100, and so too in most cases is net income. The revenue of the top company on the list, Suncor Energy, is up 38 per cent from a year ago, to $34.3 billion. The average revenue increase for oil and gas companies on the Venture 100 and Next 100 combined was 46 per cent.

Perhaps the most notable thing on this year’s V100 list is that the Top 10 is still the Top 10. There has been some slight shuffling of position by the companies in this exclusive club, but nobody has entered or left it. Furthermore, eight of the 10 had significant revenue gains (averaging 20.5 per cent). The only one that suffered a large decline in revenue – Encana (# 9, down 26 per cent) – is long on natural gas, the price of which remained stubbornly low all year.

That, in a nutshell, sums up the Venture 100 and the Next 100. If you’re long on oil, or if you provide services to the oil fields, you’ve likely done well. Those heavily invested in natural gas have not done so well, and the rest of the list is generally up thanks to the rising tide of oil prices floating all boats.

But drill down a little deeper and interesting tidbits abound.

The lists have seen an influx of junior oil and gas companies that are growing rapidly, the two most extreme examples being Chinook Energy (#158, which saw revenues grow 6,339 per cent) and MEG Energy (#75, up 2,709 per cent). These and other juniors have taken new technologies that were designed primarily for shale gas – horizontal drilling and hydrological fracturing – into old oil plays to get at resources that could not previously be extracted economically. Most of the companies on the list for revenue growth have achieved their rapid expansions in this way.

The growth in Alberta’s oil and gas sector is also beginning to have a trickle-down effect on our secondary industries, in sectors like oil field services and construction. Some of the growth among the service companies can also be attributed to the decision made by many of them to venture beyond North America. With the U.S. economy showing, at best, hesitant signs of recovery, many of Alberta’s service companies are heading into South America, eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Smart Technologies, maker of the interactive white boards that have been seized on with a vengeance by school boards, made an impressive debut on the list after its initial public offering, checking in at #76.

The construction industry has seen some big gains, led by St. Albert’s Synergy Projects (#187, revenues up 72 per cent) and the Rohit Group (#140, with revenues up 46 per cent, thanks largely to a significant presence in Fort McMurray). That good news was not consistent across the board: the biggest construction company in the province, PCL Construction Group (#16), saw revenues decline 15 per cent due to a slowdown in projects in the U.S.

Another noticeable trend on the list is that all of this growth has not yet translated into a spike in jobs. Employment numbers tend to trail revenue increases during an economic recovery, and that’s been the case this year. But expect that to change quickly. “We’re going to see employment increase in the next year,” says Gord Syme, director of business development with PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The concern then will be, ‘Where is the labour going to come from?’”

The province’s business community should also expect to see considerable growth in mergers and acquisitions activity over the next year. “Last year was a recovery year,” says Stephen Kent, managing director of corporate finance at PwC. “Nobody was sure where things were going. There was some optimism in the market, but nobody was jumping to make big deals. Now, there’s a lot of discussion going on, both from private and public companies.”

There is also growth in internal transactions by senior management and minority shareholders that is leading to increased demand for capital. So expect some company owners who delayed selling the company during the downturn to test the waters.

There are more trends to be spotted and lessons to be learned from the myriad of facts and figures in this package. Spend a little time with the lists and perhaps you’ll even find a little something that will help you the next time you have to make a decision that could change the momentum in your game.

So Long, Farewell: Forzani Group CEO Bob Sartor

John Forzani played offensive guard for the Calgary Stampeders in the early 1970s, protecting his quarterbacks from blitzing linebackers and prying open holes in the defensive lines for his running backs. Now, the company that he built in the city he grew up in will try to do the same for its new teammate, Canadian Tire. The Canadian retailing giant made a reported $771 million offer for the Forzani Group back in May, and the deal is expected to close this fall. When Forzani makes the handoff, it will mark the end of a successful 37 year run for a businessman who built the country’s biggest sporting-goods empire.

Forzani, along with his brothers Joe and Tom and one other Stampeder teammate, opened the company’s first sporting goods store, Forzani’s Locker Room, in 1974. A handful of new locations were added over the ensuing years and Forzani’s gradually added to its selection of athletic footwear by offering clothing, apparel and equipment. But it wasn’t until 1991 that a strategy for large scale growth emerged, when the company acquired Sport Chek International. From there, things moved fast, and in just two years the Forzani Group went public and became Canada’s largest specialty sporting goods retailer. More acquisitions followed, but bringing those new players into the fold almost took the company out of the game entirely. It suffered heavy losses in both 1996 and 1997. The brothers and their growing corporate team managed to turn the company around soon after that and resumed the acquisition spree. By 2009, Forzani’s had 17 store brands, a mix of corporate and franchise banners under its control, including Sport Mart, Nevada Bob’s Golf, Athletes World and Intersport. It was time to clean house.

“We wanted to unify and simplify; because of our growth, we had to decide which brands we were going to keep going forward,” says Bob Sartor, CEO of the Forzani Group. “We also took an obsessive view towards maximizing the productivity of every dollar we spend.” As part of a five-year growth plan, the actual number of the Forzani Group’s corporately owned stores decreased from 337 to 321 between 2009 and 2011. “They would be simpler and cheaper,” Sartor says, “but the stores would generate better return on sales.”

As well as focusing on productivity in order to improve the company’s bottom line, Sartor started experimenting with store size. Sport Chek –the Forzani Group’s most prominent brand, with 140 stores across the country – was looking to scale up its urban locations from 20,000 square feet to about 33,000. Meanwhile, the company was occupying smaller retail spaces in less populated markets. “You can’t put a 20,000 square foot store in Truro, Nova Scotia or Wetaskawin,” Sartor says. “We tested a small market Sport Chek and found 10,000 square feet worked best. We could probably do 75 to 100 of those stores.”

The impact of these changes was immediately apparent. Two years into the five-year plan the company’s restructuring efforts had already improved top line growth by 7.6 per cent and earnings per share by 30 per cent. The company recorded $1.4 billion in revenue from 534 stores in their most recent fiscal year-end report.

Executives at Canadian Tire liked what they saw, too. After a few months of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement that would have Canadian Tire pay cash for the 96 per cent of the Forzani Group shares that they didn’t already own. The offer worked out to $26.50 per share, a premium of close to 50 per cent.

The Canadian Tire offer wasn’t the first time that the Forzani Group had been approached, Sartor says. “We’d had suitors before and had been to the altar, but nothing panned out,” Sartor says. “There was no need for the board to sell and they weren’t looking to, but when a good offer comes along, you have to look at it.”

Forzani V100 Listing

The deal is just another in a series of moves made by Canadian Tire since Stephen Wetmore took over as president and CEO in 2009. Among other internal changes, Canadian Tire focused on redeveloping its automotive department, inked a deal to operate travel centres along two major Ontario highways, and launched itself into the large appliance market with refrigerators, washers and dryers.

The moves are all an effort to turn the nearly century-old Toronto-based company, which pulled in revenues of $10.3 billion in 2010, back in the direction of long-term growth. “It’s a massive retailer and something like 85 per cent of Canadians live within 15 minutes of a Canadian Tire,” says Derek Dley, research associate of consumer products with Canaccord Genuity. “They have a huge footprint and there wasn’t much room to expand.” As a result of the proposed deal with the Forzani Group, many analysts have switched their recommendation regarding Canadian Tire shares from hold to buy and increased the 12-month target price.

Canadian Tire’s emergence as Canada’s largest domestically-owned department store was made possible by the sale of the Hudson’s Bay Company to an investment firm south of the border and the slow decline of Eaton’s. But the arrival of Walmart and Home Depot from the U.S. during the 1990s hampered Canadian Tire’s ability to capture more of that market, and a new wave of American retailers looking to expand into Canada is expected to put even more pressure on Canadian-owned outlets. Most notable among these border-crossings is Target’s plan to take over the retail space of more than 100 Zellers locations by 2013.

“There’s just not a lot of space available here,” Sartor says. “If [U.S. retailers] don’t buy somebody it will take longer to reach critical mass, and if you don’t buy your way in building from scratch is incredibly tough.”

On the sporting goods side, competition from the U.S. is expected to arrive in Canada from Pennsylvania-based Dick’s Sporting Goods. By bringing the Forzani Group into Canadian Tire’s existing line of businesses, which include its department stores, a chain of service stations, a financial services division, PartSource and Mark’s Work Wearhouse, the iconic Canadian retailer hopes not only to add long-term growth but also to further insulate itself from Dick’s and other American retailers.

“Forzani’s is a major acquisition. This makes [Canadian Tire] a major player in the sporting goods market, which is huge in Canada,” says Dley. “If Dick’s came in they would have had to buy Forzani’s. Canadian Tire was aware of that and purchasing Forzani’s was partly done in an effort to position the company well in the sporting goods side of the business.”

While Canadian Tire may have been keeping a watchful eye on the expansion plans of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Sartor was not concerned about the arrival of the 400-store, Pennsylvania-based chain. Most of Forzani’s sales – about 70 per cent – come from apparel and footwear, while Dick’s 60,000-square-foot stores focus on sports equipment. As Canada’s largest sports retailer and with a successful growth plan underway, the impending arrival of Dick’s didn’t factor into the Forzani Group’s decision to sell. The money was simply too good to pass up.

That said, the company might not have accepted any other offer. “If it was a major U.S. player, they probably would have hollowed out the Canadian portion of the operation,” Sartor says, “and a private equity firm probably would have squeezed capital to pay off debt. This is better for the Forzani Group because Canadian Tire has deep pockets and will help us with our expansion plan.” Another reason why the merger makes sense for his company, Sartor says, is that the Forzani Group’s expertise in the area of lifestyle-oriented goods is complementary to Canadian Tire’s more equipment-oriented sporting goods strategy. “Our products are immensely complimentary, instead of competitive,” he says. As a result, he doesn’t see the deal resulting in many significant changes to the Forzani Group’s pre-existing strategy.

So what will change? Canadian Tire isn’t talking about the transaction until after it closes, but the company has indicated that the Forzani Group will continue to run as a separate entity, a strategy similar to the one used when Canadian Tire acquired Calgary-based Mark’s Work Wearhouse in 2002. “Canadian Tire does have a shared services model and some of the non-facing customer services tend to get consolidated,” Sartor says. “But it won’t impact the customer experience. This office will remain in Calgary and the bulk of the jobs will remain in Calgary.”

On the retail front, Canadian Tire and the Forzani Group will offer customers a combined 1,019 retail locations across Canada. By consolidating services in the supply chain, marketing and product sourcing, Canadian Tire expects to save about $35 million per year. Neither Sartor nor John Forzani will be sticking around to see if those numbers materialize, however. Sartor hasn’t revealed what he will do next, but for John Forzani, the deal will mark the official end of his lengthy career in the retailing business. It was 37 years ago that he opened the doors to one 1,200 square foot shop in Calgary. That’s 35 years longer than he expected to stay in the business. Now, he gets to hand off the business that he built, all 6.5 million square feet of it.

PETROBAKKEN
V100 Rank: 70 Revenue: $858,066,000 Net Income: $47,985,000
Number of Employees: 300 Chief Executive Officer: John D. Wright

Wright is the president and CEO of Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. and PetroBakken Energy Ltd. The companies share more than a chief executive and a naming prefix, too. Petrobank owns 59 per cent of PetroBakken’s publicly issued shares, and as a result, the two have taken tandem dives on the Toronto Stock Exchange over the last two years. Petrobank has fallen from over $50 a share in 2010 to the mid-teens as of July 2011, while PetroBakken has tumbled from $35 in late 2009 to $13 this past summer.

PetroBakken’s performance is all the more peculiar when viewed alongside its most direct competitor. Like PetroBakken, Crescent Point Energy Corp. deploys horizontal drilling techniques in Saskatchewan’s Bakken oil play. But unlike PetroBakken, Crescent Point’s share price rose from around $31 in July 2009 to the mid-40s in July of this year.

So why does Wright practically radiate optimism?

He might simply be refusing to acknowledge reality, or he might know more than the market does. Determining which will depend heavily on what happens when Petrobank and PetroBakken play the technological trump cards they have stashed up their sleeves.

Fast Forward: John Wright thinks the future holds big things
Photo by John Gaucher

Wright’s first high card is the grey matter carried around in the craniums of his employees. “PetroBakken is a team of technical specialists who have drilled more horizontal wells with multi-stage [hydraulic fractures] than anyone else in Canada,” he says. “That skill set and database of success and failure is unparalleled. There’s nobody who could match that.”

Horizontal wells represent the future of conventional oil extraction in Canada, Wright says. “What we have left in the Canadian basins now –
you’re kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel,” he says. “There’s not a lot of easy resource that you can go capture.” At this point, vertical wells have sucked up more or less everything they can. But billions of barrels still remain in Alberta’s Cardium oil play, and they can be coaxed out of the ground with the sort of expertise in which PetroBakken specializes. Hence Wright’s sunny outlook.

Yet the TSX clearly disagrees with him, and at least part of that has to do with the Cardium acquisitions that PetroBakken made in early 2010. The company paid out $336 million in cash to acquire Berens Energy, $480 million in cash and PetroBakken stock to nab Result Energy and approximately $250 million in cash and company shares to buy out a private Cardium-focused company.

Wright rejects the idea that his company might have overpaid for the properties, which together cost the company just over $1 billion. “You can whine about the deals you didn’t do,” he says, “but if you own the land, you own it forever. We’re not complaining.”

PetroBakken planned to drill additional wells on its new Cardium assets in order to increase production right after it acquired them, but Mother Nature vetoed that with a cold, wet summer. An encore performance for the first half of 2011 meant that PetroBakken’s Cardium assets could not increase production as expected. “There have been floods all over,” Wright says. “We’re expecting locusts next, by the way.”

Alan Knowles, an analyst with Haywood Securities Inc., still believes in PetroBakken’s potential. He says the company will ramp up production in the Cardium by the end of the year, and pump up its share price in doing so. “I have a high degree of confidence that they’ll meet their exit rates for the year,” he says. “I think that will be very positive for the stock.” Knowles thinks PetroBakken’s Cardium assets produce 20,000 barrels of oil per day.

Late Bloomer; Petrobank COO Chris Bloomer says his company’s THAI technology is a replacement for SAGD
Photo by Colin Way

Wright’s next ace in the hole is Petrobank’s Toe to Heel Air Injection (THAI) technology. THAI is a new method of extracting oil from the viscous, deep-down bitumen deposits that comprise most of the Athabasca oil sands. The process injects air through vertical wells into one end of a heavy oil deposit. When the oxygen hits the hydrocarbons at a temperature of around 700 C, it ignites a combustion reaction that creates enough heat and pressure to force the oil into a horizontal collecting well that runs along the bottom of the deposit. From there, the oil gets piped along to the end of the deposit – the “heel” in the moniker – and then up to the surface through vertical production wells.

“We think that THAI is ultimately a replacement for SAGD,” says Chris Bloomer, senior vice-president and chief operating officer of Petrobank. Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage, the current industry standard for heavy oil extraction, works by running two horizontal wells underneath heavy oil deposits and pumping steam into one of them. The steam heats the oil, reducing its viscosity and letting gravity drain it into the other well, which takes it to the surface.

Bloomer believes that THAI holds some important advantages over SAGD. Since it’s powered by compressed air instead of evaporated water, THAI needs far less initial energy to get the oil moving. Not only does this reduce carbon emissions, it also means THAI extraction can be profitable in places where SAGD’s costs make it uneconomical. And because THAI operates at such high pressure and temperature, it recovers about 20 per cent more oil from a given deposit than SAGD. THAI even produces water that can be used in other industrial processes.

It can be applied far outside of Alberta, too, with substantial deposits of heavy oil in places like Venezuela, China and Alaska. “The issue is technology to get it out of the ground,” says Bloomer. Since Petrobank holds the patents for THAI, it stands to make a great deal of money if the global oil and gas industry adopts the process.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen. “People are committed to SAGD, but we know a lot of people are looking at combustion very seriously now,” Bloomer says. “Petrobank has the only advanced-stage combustion process that has proven that it works. The industry is very slow in picking things up, but once [new technology] reaches a tipping point, it becomes the standard.”

The testing of THAI got started in 2006 with a small pilot project west of Conklin, Alberta. Since then, Petrobank has used THAI at projects in eastern Saskatchewan and central Alberta. By July of 2012, Petrobank could be producing 37,200 barrels of oil a day with the process.

With the THAI process and the Cardium land assets working in their favour, Petro-Bakken and Petrobank could be poised on the verge of major growth. Wright sounds like he wouldn’t have it any other way. “We’ve been sitting on a huge inventory of opportunities, just getting ready to execute,” he says. “It’s now all about converting that into dollars in the bank.”

Illustration by Douglas Jones

Canadian Energy Services and Technologies
2010 Rank: 158
2011 Rank: 115
Gain: + 43 spots

The Calgary-based firm, which specializes in designing drilling fluid systems for the oil and gas sector, has made a strong move up the Next 100 rankings over the last three years, moving from 172nd spot in 2009 to 115th in 2011. It posted a very impressive 178 per cent rate of revenue growth over the last fiscal year, going from just under $90 million in 2009 to almost $250 million in 2010. If it can continue growing at that torrid pace, it should be able to make a strong bid for joining the V100 next year.

Total Energy Services
2010 Rank: 142
2011 Rank: 120
Gain: + 22 spots

Total Energy Services had one heck of a year in 2010. The oilfield supply company is broken into three subsidiaries: Chinook Drilling, which does contract drilling services, Total Oilfield Rentals LP, which offers rental and transportation services, and Bidell Equipment LP, which deals in the fabrication, sale, rental and servicing of new and used natural gas compression equipment. All together, they more than doubled Total Energy Services’s revenues from a year earlier and fuelled the company’s steady march up the Next 100 list.

Trican Well Service
2010 Rank: 56
2011 Rank: 43
Gain: +13 spots

If you’re looking for a company that might one day crack the top 10, Trican Well Service might be worth a look. It’s not just that it nearly doubled its revenues in 2010, or that it has cracked the top 50 for the first time. It’s also the fact that it’s involved in the pressure pumping of fluids, one of the most explosive growth areas of the oil and gas sector. It’s not just involved, either. In fact, it’s the largest provider of pressure pumping services in Canada, as well as being the largest fracturing company in Russia and having a growing network of operations in the United States, Kazakhstan and Algeria.

The Churchill Corporation
2010 Rank: 64
2011 Rank: 52
Gain: +12 spots

It’s not just oil and gas companies moving up the list this year. The Churchill Corporation, a diversified commercial construction and maintenance company, made a bold move on this year’s list, up 13 spots from 64th place to 51st. It also nearly doubled its revenues, growing them from a shade over $600 million in 2009 to nearly $1.2 billion in 2010. Next stop: the top 50 on next year’s list.

Honourable Mention: Superior Plus
2010 Rank: 29
2011 Rank: 24
Gain: +5 spots

On the basis of the number of spots it has advanced up the list, Superior Plus isn’t quite in the same league as the other four companies featured on this page. But when you consider the fact that the former income trust, which deals in the marketing of propane, related appliances and services, is leapfrogging companies with revenues in excess of $2 billion, its progress might even be more impressive. After clocking in at 34th on our 2009 list, Superior Plus made it to 29th in 2010. This year, it managed to crack the top 25, and if the trend continues it should make the top 20 in 2012.

Meet Bradley S. Shaw, the 47-year-old youngest son of JR Shaw, the little brother of Jim Shaw and the new face of Shaw Communications Inc. No, there’s no plan to change the company’s stock symbol from the father’s initials to the son’s, but the third Shaw is nearing his first anniversary as chief executive officer. Ten months into his tenure, analysts, reporters, investors and competitors still aren’t quite sure what to make of Brad – or of Shaw’s prospects with him at the helm.

Photograph by Colin Way

“I’m just a guy,” Shaw says. What you see, he says, is what you get: a little shy, very private and “totally committed.” He’s not precisely shocked that he’s CEO of one of Canada’s largest vertically integrated media companies. He is, after all, a Shaw. But he is perhaps mildly surprised that the board, his father and, heck, fate itself have put him in this role. The succession was emphatically not pre-ordained. It was not on anyone’s mind in 1987, when he became the second prodigal son to come into the family business after a rocky late adolescence and “lost” early 20s (Jim had followed a similar pattern of estrangement, reconciliation and ascent). Nor was it considered in 1997, when he moved to Calgary and into the ranks of senior management. That move came with the stipulation that, while he would work hard for the company,
his priority was spending time with his wife and children.

Shaw Communications V100 Listing

Did a decade-plus of watching big brother Jim run the show give Brad an injection of ambition? Probably not. If Jim, to whom JR handed the reins in 1998 when the father was 64 and the son not quite 40, had displayed the interest to stay at the helm longer, one gets the impression that Brad would have been content to continue playing a supporting role. He shoulders the CEO role as a responsibility, not a reward. There is no ego here, just determination to work, and perhaps a healthy tinge of fear at the immensity of the task with which he’s been entrusted. That’s Brad Shaw – that’s what he projects. “It’s not about coming with ego and saying you know stuff,” he says. “I want smart people around me; I want smarter people than me around me
– people that challenge me, that can think out of the box.”

A bigger contrast to brother Jim one can’t imagine, and Brad is aware of that. “Jim’s style is more, ‘This is what I want to do and that’s how we’re going to do it,’” he says. But notwithstanding Jim’s abrupt exit (see sidebar: “End of an Era”) and any inevitable sibling rivalry caused by Jim’s my-way-or-the- highway attitude, Brad won’t criticize his older brother. He can’t. “When I look at the 12 years he’s been there running the company, we’ve had incredible growth and incredible success, and that doesn’t come from someone just throwing darts at a board. He was incredible at strategic thinking, and he wanted to carry out his strategy a certain way, and great, he did it.”

JR Shaw’s Short Course in Human Relations

The six most important words
“I admit I made a mistake.”
The five most important words
“You did a good job.”
The four most important words
“What is your opinion?”
The three most important words
“If you please.”
The two most important words
“Thank you.”
The most important word
“We.”
The least important word
“I.”
Source: Above and Beyond: The JR Shaw Family in Life and Business

What’s Brad Shaw’s way? “I’m more collaborative,” he says. That comes across even in the way he talks about his competitors and the changing mediascape in Canada. “As the competition here heats up – which I think is great for the customer – what that means for us is that competition is not just with Telus. It’s with Apple; it’s with Google,” he says. “It’s become global.”

Jim fought frequently with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and the federal Competition Bureau with gloves off. He even went so far as to withhold Shaw’s payments to the Canadian Television Fund back in 2007. Brad would prefer to educate than to scrap. He doesn’t do adversarial very well, and that has some commentators worried. “The new Shaw might be a kinder, gentler company, and that’s probably good news for [Telus CEO] Darren Entwistle, among others,” says Iain Grant, a commentator on the technology marketplace with Montreal’s Seaboard Group. Ouch. But Brad invites it. “We’re all going to compete and everyone wants to win,” he says.

Jim, one suspects, did not need to ponder that particular issue. His 12 years as CEO are bracketed by two of Shaw’s biggest and highest-profile transactions: the battle for control of Western International Communications in 1998, in which he first took on Canwest and the Aspers; and the 2010 buyout of the dying Canwest empire’s broadcasting assets. Both deals cast Shaw as the underdog, but one that was willing to push the envelope – legally and strategically – and do what needed to be done to close the deal.

JR probably didn’t agonize over the definition of winning, either. Winning equalled building, acquiring and growing. He founded the company in 1966 and made his first acquisition two years later. That began a trend that would see Shaw complete more than 70 acquisitions over its 35-year history. “When I joined the company in 1989, both JR and Jim said to me, ‘We are going to be acquirers, not the acquired,” remembers Shaw’s president, Peter Bissonnette.

From the beginning, JR was building not just a business, but also a Shaw family legacy (even if he didn’t give the company that name until 1983). Don’t let the public nature of Shaw’s ownership fool you. What’s significant is not that Shaw is a publicly traded company, but that the ticker name is SJR – JR Shaw’s initials, last name first. It’s the Shaw family’s inheritance, in which the public is allowed to invest. Shaw’s dual class structure ensures that only holders of Class A shares have a say in how the company is run, and the Shaw family controls 79 per cent of those shares.

You might wonder whether that means the patriarch really did relinquish control. And the answer is … yeah, mostly. First, there’s a voting trust agreement among the corporations owned or controlled by the Shaws that is exercised by five trustees. More compellingly, there’s the fact that JR would not have handled the Western International acquisition the way Jim did, and he would not have otherwise steered Shaw the way Jim did. Meanwhile, the public handover was complete. After 1998, Jim was the face of Shaw, and JR’s public contribution was limited to the provision of complimentary sound bites that supported his son’s leadership.

From a technological and competitive point of view, JR exited the spotlight at just the right time. He recalls the rise of the Internet, and the conversation he and Jim had around it. “Is that going to be a business?” he remembers asking.

“Are people going to use it? Is there something there we can sell?” Jim had a better grasp on this new thing than his father. “I needed to step back,” JR says.
“I think when you’re into these big jobs and they’re so demanding and so forth,
you need younger minds, and that’s when Jim came into being. And now Brad.”

Brad watched the first transition and the conflict it created between father and son. “JR, with Jim, had to let him do his thing, and it was initially tough,” he says. “This time, it’s easier for him, because he’s been through that already.” The one who’s having a bit of a struggle letting go this time is, naturally, Jim. “I talk to him, and he says, ‘Remember, I did this, and you should do that.’” Brad laughs. And you can see the younger brother, used to this pattern, nodding so as not to provoke a fight, and then going off to do his own thing. His own thing, yes, but with input from others, including Jim. “He cares,” says Brad. “He lives and breathes this stuff.” Plus, let’s face it, Jim may not be running Shaw, but Shaw is still Jim’s income stream, and Brad knows it. “As a family, you need to have these conversations – from an ownership point of view.”

The End of an Era

Nobody wanted it to happen this way. The transition plan that was in place was good: Jim Shaw would see the Canwest acquisition through to the end and then ride off into the sunset. It wasn’t a sudden decision: there was a health scare in 2008 that had the “bad boy of cable” rethinking priorities, and throughout 2009 and 2010, Jim would intermittently send signals that he was done.

“It does take a toll on you,” says Peter Bissonnette, Shaw’s president. “It’s heavy lifting.” Shortly after the health crisis, Jim confided in Bissonnette “that he wanted to see the next phase of his life” sooner rather than later. From that point on, Bissonnette knew he’d soon have a new Shaw as CEO, and he watched Brad take on more and more of the load in anticipation of the transition.

The Canwest deal was closing on October 27, 2010; on October 22, Jim Shaw announced that the Brad era would start the following January.

Then came an investors’ lunch on November 12, 2010, in Vancouver, at which Jim heckled and insulted investors and Shaw management. Six days later, Brad was the CEO.

The official line from Shaw was that it made sense for the transition to be immediate so Brad could “move forward with the necessary decisions” with respect to the Canwest deal.

But it’s hard to refute that the older brother’s highly visible meltdown sped up the hand over to the new CEO. “It wasn’t done the way we had planned, but you deal with things as they happen,” says Brad. “I’m sure he regrets it, but it is what it is.” JR steered the ship for 22 years. Jim did it for 12. “I think 12 years is a long time,” Brad says.

“It’s been a long haul getting here, and doing this, it’s something where to fight the fight, your heart has to be there, and I think he lost some of the willingness to do that.”

Family-controlled public companies have long been a mainstay of corporate Canada, perhaps nowhere more so than in the media industry, where the eight companies that account for three-quarters of all television-media-Internet revenues are (or were) family companies at their core: Thomson Reuters (which owns the Globe and Mail), Shaw, Rogers, Quebecor (QMI), Cogeco, Astral, the Toronto Star and Transcontinental. Their structure intermittently comes under fire by analysts and pundits, in Shaw’s case most recently when Jim’s $16,000-a-day pension was revealed.

But such companies have one unassailable advantage over their truly public brethren. “They have a long-term perspective,” says Jay Mehr, senior vice-president of operations at Shaw. “We have the ability to make more dramatic, more conscious shifts in our approach than other organizations. Companies that are focused on the individual quarter or individual fiscal year wouldn’t have that ability,” he says.
Seaboard’s Grant agrees. “Shaw looks at things differently than other corporations – from generation to generation, not quarter to quarter,” he says. “They’re looking at building something. After all, their name is on the front door.”

Brad’s inaugural quarter disappointed analysts, while the most current one pleased them. Unlike his brother, this is not a man who will tell off analysts or shareholders for criticizing him. But he will tell you what he thinks is wrong with the current corporate business model. “Everything’s about the quarter,” he says. “You race to the quarter; you race to the month’s end. Yes, there’s a measurement for that, but there has to be measurement for creating long-term value for shareholders.”

Long-term value for this Shaw isn’t just about share price. He doesn’t think that way: his big picture includes everything. Former Senior Vice-President of Operations Bill MacDonald, who mentored Brad when he returned to the fold, said he “found Brad very different from the others … Brad wore his emotions on his sleeve. It made him terribly vulnerable.” What Brad remembers most about the Canwest acquisition is not the thrill of the fight nor the thrill of victory, but empathy with what the Asper family had to be going through at the time. “When JR and I talked about the deal, he said to me, ‘We’ve just got to realize how that’s changed that family – how we would never want to be in that spot,’” Brad recalls.

JR’s empathy for the Aspers did not prevent him from pursuing the Canwest deal, nor did it prevent him from making a myriad of other tough business calls, such as the 1994 asset-swap deal with Ted Rogers that enabled Rogers to buy Maclean Hunter. Ron Osborne, CEO of Maclean Hunter, was angry. He had pegged Shaw as a potential white knight. “I guess that means you are in Ted Rogers’ camp,” he said to JR. The elder Shaw’s response was simple: “No, Ron, I’m in Shaw’s camp.”

For 12 years, Jim demonstrated he had taken that particular lesson to heart. Now it’s Brad’s turn. But Brad’s take on what “in Shaw’s camp” means may be different. “You need to make a difference, make a contribution – don’t always be taking,” he says. “Shaw needs to do more to give back, and I’m not talking about giving the farm away, but we need to be more serious about making a difference. When did it become just about the almighty profit? Where is there a bigger game to play? There is more of a role that business needs to play in communities and societies in a more positive way.” He points to Shaw’s recent Together is Amazing campaign as just one such initiative, and circles back to Shaw’s competitors. Suppose Shaw and Telus teamed up to do something better, bigger? How great would that be? “This will be funny when Darren reads it,” he says, laughing. “‘What do you mean you want to do something with us?’”

Let’s be clear: he’s talking community collaboration here, not business collaboration. But as the Canadian media landscape continues to adapt to the business realities of vertical integration, to technological change run rampant, to the spectre of real global competition and to an ever more demanding and fickle customer, business collaboration could well be in the cards. JR built and bought. Jim aggressively acquired. Is Brad going to be the Shaw who will have to collaborate in a merger or other business deal in which the Shaw ego needs to be swallowed so that shareholder value is maintained, or, better yet, maximized?

It’s not Shaw’s first choice. “We look at what we have here and what we are generating, and the family is extremely pleased about the position we are in,” Brad says. “For us, this is our life. We’ve worked for it; our sweat equity is in here,” he says. “You never know what’s going to happen in the future.”

For even more with Shaw CEO Brad Shaw, go to albertaventure.com/bradshaw/

He called Chaplain Cyril Gowler.

Gowler immediately went to Strong’s home. He counselled Strong and made some referrals. Strong took some stress leave and has returned to work. “It if wasn’t for Cyril and the corporate chaplaincy program,” Strong says, “I am concerned for what might have happened.”

It’s an unusual program in the business world: a corporate chaplaincy designed to help employees with problems they face. But it’s part of the faith-friendly workplace – the company also has a prayer, meditation and reflection room – encouraged by CEO Gord Wiebe, who oversees 1,000 employees, primarily in Alberta and Ontario. “The chaplaincy program is an opportunity for our chaplains to connect with our people,” he says. “It’s about what’s happening in your life and what challenges you are facing; how can we be of service to help that, because we value you as a person and we value you as an employee.”

The program began in 2006. Two chaplains are based in Edmonton, and one, part-time, at the company’s office in Mississauga, Ontario. “Some people feel it is politically risky for them,” Wiebe says. “Some companies use the corporate chaplaincy program to push their faith directly at their employees. That’s not the point of our chaplaincy program.”

Support System: All Weather Windows Chaplain Cyril Gowler and CEO Gordon Wiebe (in front)
Photography by Bluefish

Instead, he says, it’s about talking with employees and trying to ensure that they are in a healthy mental state, at home and at work. The company does not directly profit from the program, but instead gets its return on investment in the form of a more engaged workforce. “We’re all guilty of it sometimes – of being present in body but not in mind,” Wiebe says.

Gowler, the senior corporate chaplain, says the program genuinely looks after people’s health. His work involves a lot of intervention with problems that follow employees to work. He deals with depression and addiction, pregnancy and divorce. “We refer people [to other professionals]; we do hospital visits,” Gowler says. “When someone has the resources to phone another person, bounce an idea off them, tell them what they’re feeling, it takes a lot of pressure off them.”

Gowler’s background includes 24 years in business. He joined All Weather Windows as corporate chaplain in 2006. He is Christian, but that does not discourage employees of other faiths from seeking him out. “We don’t put our faith aside when we talk to people of other faiths,” he says, “but we certainly respect and honour others’ faiths simply by being a listening ear and accepting of differences others believe in.”

On average, Gowler makes one to two calls in an evening after work. Having someone to talk with can help to alleviate problems and translate into a healthier workplace. “For some people, the need for belonging and being connected is as great as needing oxygen or water,” he says. “Most develop really well when they know someone cares about them.” The program also involves Gowler in intimate moments in employees’ lives, and he has presided over hundreds of weddings and funerals.

Kim-Chi Nguyen, a team leader at All Weather’s Edmonton plant, has been with the company for 10 years. She has seen the benefit of the corporate chaplaincy first-hand. “I had been having a lot of marital problems and was taking a lot of time off work,” she says. “It was affecting my ability to work and maintain leadership on the line.” As a result, she decided to talk to Gowler and Chaplain Catherine Pysar. “It helps to have someone to talk to,” Nguyen says. “Cyril is like a psychiatrist for me, someone who listens and gives advice. It clears my mind and helps me focus on my purpose.”

Gowler says marital problems, in particular, can be a drain on a workforce. “Their minds are not necessarily on their work; it’s more on their personal problems,” he says. “If someone is to intervene in that, or come alongside when they’re experiencing difficulties, the employee will be able to concentrate far greater and more effectively on the work they’re doing.”

According to some of this province’s biggest names, though, that might be a serious mistake. After all, if you’re looking to become a leader, it helps to spend some time in the company of other leaders, and there are few environments that are more rich in that regard than the boards of this province’s not-for-profit organizations.

Model Behaviour Audrey Luft, the president of Manpower Alberta and past-chair of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, says board experience can offer the rare opportunity to see leaders in action up close and personal. “Boards gave me the opportunity to see how leaders, often very senior leaders, think and problem- solve,” she says. Dr. Bob Westbury, the recently retired chair of Telus Edmonton Community Board and a recipient of the Order of Canada for his contribution to the community, thinks not-for-profit boards are a great place for young business people to find mentors. “Look for role models who are self-made leaders with a moral compass who are driven to not just do the right thing for a company but also the right thing for the society in which a company lives,” he says.
Leadership 101 Eric Newell, the former chair and CEO of Syncrude, also believes that board experience and leadership skills go hand in hand. “Your colleagues usually think the way you do, but when you are on a board, you are exposed to different perspectives,” Newell says. “The key to leadership is to understand why people think differently.” Those kinds of experiences can also help you build up your core business skills. “You learn to hone your analytical skills and determine the strengths, the weaknesses, the threats, the challenges and how to manage risks,” Newell says. “Generally, you learn about guiding the strategy for an organization.”
Speak Easy Board experience also enhances your communication skills, which are an essential component of leadership. “Volunteering on a board enables you to be comfortable in any crowd or in a one-on-one dialogue with anyone and feel very much at home,” Luft says. “It teaches you how to be a public speaker, get your points across, develop your own style, be visionary, and how to be successful in a well- planned and thought out process in order to accomplish what you set out to do.”
Network Building There’s also the ever-important dynamic of networking. And while networking has moved beyond luncheons and mixers with the rise of social media, online interactions can’t match the social and professional opportunities that arise when you work side by side with experienced leaders on a not-for-profit board. Volunteering for a campaign, event or board will help you develop a large network linking you to the community, and within the network will be peers and mentors to support the development of your leadership skills. Best of all, the personal relationships developed in a not-for-profit leadership position are built on common goals and interests, and are therefore profoundly authentic.
Build your Brand It’s not just about you, either. Involvement in your community can also create a goodwill trust account that you build up with your customers, your employees and the communities where you do business. An important intangible benefit for you and your company may not even be evident until needed, according to Angus Watt, a managing director at National Bank Financial and the chair of the Alberta Order of Excellence. “There’s no doubt in my mind that people would be prepared to give a company more leniency if something happened, someone made a human error or whatever the case may be, if they thought they were a good corporate citizen.”
Find your Field Don’t try to pick the most prestigious organization or the one with the most influential people on its board. Instead, pick one that matches your interests. You don’t have to start at the top. “A board doesn’t have to be your only entry point with a not-for-profit,” Newell says. “It’s often better to go to an organization and say, ‘I’m really interested in what you do. I don’t really know how I can contribute but I’d like to. Is there any way I can help?’ It’s amazing what could be done that way.” If you’re new to volunteering, pick an area you are interested in and offer to help on a fundraising campaign, a golf tournament, a fundraising event or the board of a small organization. As you gain experience, your name starts to get known, and if you’re lucky – and good – you’ll be invited to other boards.
The Final Product In the end, while finding your way onto the board of a local not-for-profit may help you grow your skills and define your career path, the biggest reward may come in the form of personal growth. “You’ll find clarity with your own life, a better understanding of your community and a better understanding of the people within your community,” Watt says. “And at the end of the day, contributing to your community will help you develop your leadership skills to become leaders of leaders versus leaders of followers.” Who wouldn’t want that?

Illustration by Douglas Jones

Compared with the previous years, 2010 was a quiet one when it came to mergers and acquisitions in Alberta. Yes, there were deals, most notably Shaw Communications’ $2-billion purchase of Canwest’s television assets, which is explored elsewhere in this package. But for the most part, it was a year in which companies played it safe. Indeed, the highest-profile deal of the year was one that ultimately didn’t go through, the $5.4-billion proposed partnership between PetroChina and Encana that would have seen the development of Encana’s Cutbank Ridge property.

Things picked up a bit over the first six months of 2011, though, and whether that was the product of the rising Canadian dollar or the absence of better bargains closer to home, the deals that were struck tended to have an international dimension. Is it a harbinger of more to come?

January 2011
Epcor buys Arizona American Water and New Mexico American Water, wholly owned subsidiaries of American Water Works Company Inc. for US$470 million. Epcor also buys Arizona-based Chaparral City Water Company of Fountain Hills for US$29 million in March.

May 2011
Canadian Tire acquires the Calgary-based Forzani Group in a friendly takeover worth an estimated $771 million. For more on this deal, click here.

June 2011
Agrium buys Nebraska-based Tetra Micrountrients. Deal value TBD. Agrium also purchased Vancouver-based Evergro Canada a few weeks later for $50 million.

June 2011
Boston-based Atlantic Power purchases Capital Power Income LP, a subsidiary of Edmonton’s Capital Power Corporation, for $1.1 billion. Capital Power will collect approximately $320 million in stock and shares for its holdings in CPILP.

July 2011
Atco buys WA Gas Networks, which connects to 620,000 customers in the Perth metropolitan region through 12,800 kilometres of pipeline, for approximately $1 billion (including assumed debt). It’s Atco’s biggest deal in three decades.

Photography by Colin Way

The Geek Squad

Yes, they’re geeks, and proud of it. And why wouldn’t they be, given the crucial role they play in helping our increasingly tech-dependent economy and the companies that drive it move forward?

(l-r) Heather Campbell/CPR, Kim Johnson/Graham Group, Janet Topic/Trimac and Patrick “Scott” Walsh/Enerplus

Technology touches many aspects of a company and the role of the CIO is to bridge the gap between technology and business. By understanding technology and its importance on the business, the CIO helps drive companies forward by putting the right information into the hands of people making decisions. Here are four CIOs who are redefining the systems, processes and technology at some of the biggest corporations in Alberta.

Heather Campbell, vice-president and CIO with Canadian Pacific

When Heather Campbell was working at a law firm in eastern Canada, the company decided to introduce an IT system and Campbell worked on rolling out the local area network. “I discovered I really liked IT and from there on in, every job I’ve had has been in information technology,” she says. Campbell has held senior IT roles with a few different organizations and eventually became CIO when she joined CP almost three years ago. Technology is also a big part of Campbell’s personal life. The 47-year-old is married to a Java software engineer, their house is networked and instead of a home phone, they just use their cell phones. “We’re a very tech savvy little family,” she says. “Even my dogs are chipped.” When she needs to take a break from technology, it’s likely you can find Campbell in the kitchen trying out new recipes. “I’m a pretty good cook,” she says.

Q: Do you use a Mac or a PC at home?
A: Mac.

Q: What Internet browser do you use?
A: Internet Explorer. On my Mac at home I use Safari.

Q: What social networks are you part of?
A: Facebook and LinkedIn. And Quora.

Q: What gadget do you use most in your personal life?
A: My BlackBerry.

Q: How many emails do you receive in a day?
A: 300

Q: How much time do you spend reading and answering emails in a day?
A: On and off, probably a couple of hours.

Scott Walsh, vice-president of information services with Enerplus

In the mid-1980s, the prospects for engineering jobs were bleak, but Scott Walsh saw potential in information technology. “At the time I was going to college it was relatively unknown and that attracted me,” he says. It was a smart move. For the past two decades, Walsh has been plying his IT knowledge in Alberta’s oil patch. He joined Enerplus in April 2011 to serve as the company’s vice-president of information services. As well as providing Walsh with a source of income, technology has found its way into much of the 43-year-old’s personal life. “It’s big, I coach soccer and hockey, and use technology for everything from practice plans to communication,” Walsh says. Every now and again Walsh’s dog Harley will remind him that long walks are a good way to escape from technology. A round of golf or boating in B.C. aren’t bad options either, says Walsh.

Q: Do you use a Mac or a PC at home?
A: I use both at home, but my preference is Mac.

Q: What Internet browser do you use?
A: Mozilla Firefox.

Q: What social networks are you part of?
A: None, but I use my wife’s Facebook quite a bit.

Q: What gadget do you use most in your personal life?
A: My BlackBerry.

Q: How many emails do you receive in a day?
A: Probably around 100.

Q: How much time do you spend reading and answering emails in a day?
A: Two hours per day.

Janet Topic, senior vice-president of corporate services and CIO with Trimac Transportation

After graduating university with a double major in computer science and commerce, Janet Topic was bound to become a CIO someday. The 53-year-old joined Trimac in 1996 and became the Calgary-based company’s CIO in 2002. In her role, Topic walks a fine line between balancing both the technology and business needs of Trimac. “The CIO role is very important in companies now with the need for good systems and making sure there is an applicable use in the company,” she says. “If the role is positioned properly, it’s a business enabler.” Technology has become an integral part of business and Topic says, “Technology is ubiquitous in our lives and we don’t even realize it.” When she needs to shut out the technological world, Topic turns to sports and most often, the swimming pool. “I do something every day, but if you ask me which sport is my favourite, I’d say swimming,” she says.

Q: Do you use a Mac or a PC at home?
A: Mac.

Q: What Internet browser do you use?
A: Internet Explorer or Safari on my Mac.

Q: What social networks are you part of?
A: I’m not terribly active in that arena, but I have a Facebook page and LinkedIn, mostly to understand what these tools provide.

Q: What gadget do you use most in your personal life?
A: My BlackBerry.

Q: How many emails do you receive in a day?
A: In excess of 200.

Q: How much time do you spend reading and answering emails in a day?
A: Not that long, maybe one and a half to two hours. I try to manage it like paper mail, so I don’t stop and read it in real-time. You can let it interrupt and drive you, but I try and manage it, rather than let it manage me.

Kim Johnson, executive vice-president and CIO with Graham Group.

Some people don’t choose careers, their careers choose them. Kim Johnson joined the Graham Group 17 years ago and after about a decade became CIO of the Calgary-based construction company. “Like a lot of things, it was more organic than anything else,” says the 39-year-old. “I started in IT and moved up through the company until I reached the top end of my area of expertise.”

Johnson says the organic growth of technology has shifted it into the background as people focus more on the ideas that connect them, rather than the technology they are using to do it. Technology is especially pervasive indoors, so when Johnson wants a bit of time to himself he heads outdoors. “Being in Calgary it typically involves the mountains,” Johnson says. “When you’re biking, hiking, climbing or kayaking, it’s harder for technology to intervene.”

Q: Do you use a Mac or a PC at home?
A: PC.

Q: What Internet browser do you use?
A: Internet Explorer. It’s a carryover from the corporate world.

Q: What social networks are you part of?
A: LinkedIn, again it’s a carryover from the corporate world. And Facebook.

Q: What gadget do you use most in your personal life?
A: My BlackBerry.

Q: How many emails do you receive in a day?
A: Not as many as I used to. It’s probably down to less than 50.

Q: How much time do you spend reading and answering emails in a day?
A: Quite a bit, it’s not the number of emails; it’s the content in them. Probably about a quarter to a third of the day.

Angel Investors

Alberta’s corporate leaders aren’t afraid of doing a little heavy lifting when it comes to supporting the causes that they believe in. Meet a few who are more than carrying their load, and the causes that benefit from those efforts.

(l-r) John Leder/Supreme Group, Tom Redl/Chandos, Radhe Gupta/Rohit Group, Diane Brickner/Peace Hills Insurance, Dave Mowat/ATB, Don Lowry/Epcor and Leon Zupan/Enbridge

Alberta’s corporate leaders aren’t afraid of doing a little heavy lifting when it comes to supporting the causes that they believe in. Meet a few that are more than carrying their load, and the causes that benefit from those efforts.

Alberta Venture: What lessons has your organization learned as a group as a result of its involvement with the Olympics?

Don Lowry, president and CEO of Epcor: What our involvement really reinforced was success through teamwork. We learned that if you work as a team and you set audacious goals like “Own the Podium,” you can accomplish outstanding achievements. For us it was improving operations and safety and success of our investments in Arizona and in the oil sands – all achieved through teamwork.

AV: What lessons have you personally learned as a result of your corporate involvement with organizations in the community?

Tom Redl, president of Chandos Construction: I’ve learned a lot in being involved with the Citadel Theatre. When I started I did not understand the value of theatre arts in the community. You come to understand that for a live theatre performance to be relevant to a community, it has to reflect the issues of that community. So, in a lot of cases, you can get a different perspective on an issue. I’ve had my perspective on a number of social issues really renewed and adjusted through experiencing the theatre.

AV: Are there tangible benefits, both to yourself and to your organization, in volunteerism and community involvement?

Diane Brickner, president and CEO of Peace Hills Insurance: I’ve been the president of Peace Hills for almost 30 years, but nobody really knew about me until I joined the board of the Edmonton Eskimos and all of sudden my profile skyrocketed. It was a bizarre thing. For myself and for Peace Hills, my being on the Eskimos board has made a significant difference to our profile. It’s also a ton of fun being on that board.

AV: What does your organization do to engage your employees and encourage them to become involved with the organizations you support?

Radhe Gupta, president and CEO of Rohit Group: We really ask every one of our employees to find a way of doing what they can to help out. We sponsor functions and we have a Mental Health Foundation fundraising evening at our own house. So we had 250 people in our own house and that’s a yearly event that we try to promote.

AV: How does community involvement help to develop corporate leaders?

Leon Zupan, vice-president of operations at Enbridge: Anytime somebody in business gets a chance to understand more about their community – and that’s certainly something that you get from the United Way – then you have an opportunity to come back and engage your employees. It provides a way to look at an employee’s job and our company’s role in the community differently.

AV: Why is it important for a corporate leader, like the president of a company, to get involved with an organization like STARS?

Dave Mowat, president and CEO of ATB Financial: It shows a different side of you as an individual and that goes a long way in building trust and believability. The more people know about you the better. When people appear one dimensional, you always wonder what that other dimension is. I’m an open book and ATB is an book, so I think it helps when employees can see me in the community.

People Power

In an economy where skilled labour is at a premium, the humble human resources specialist has evolved into a key player in every company’s C-Suite. Give them their due – they’ve earned it.

(l-r) Shane Sabatino/The Brick, Susan Adam/Alberta Blue Cross, Uve Knaak/Canadian Western Bank, Shad Smereka/Fountain Tire and Harmony Carter/PCL

In an economy where skilled labour is at a premium, the humble human resources specialist has evolved into a key player in every company’s C-Suite. Give them their due – they’ve earned it.

What do you do in order to attract the best possible people to your organization?

Uve Knaak, Canadian Western Bank: Canadian Western Bank makes full use of the normal on-line recruitment sources including sites like Monster and Workopolis as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook . However, our reputation as one of the 50 Best Employers in Canada and Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures is a major component in attracting the best people to Canadian Western Bank Group. Our strong corporate culture and great career opportunities, built on a strong compensation platform, make Canadian Western Bank an employer of choice.

Our employees are proud of where they work – the way we deal with staff and clients alike and, as a result, often refer friends and family members to the Bank for employment. Our staff Referral Incentive Program is our most effective recruitment tool in attracting quality applicants who stay and are fully engaged.

Finally, we are committed to the hard won character trait of loyalty. We work to earn the loyalty of our employees through accessible senior management, open honest discussion of any concerns, and a no layoff policy.

Susan Adam, Alberta Blue Cross: Alberta Blue Cross is a values-based organization, and we have been fortunate to find great people who share our values and as such want to be part of our organization.

We encourage a real work-life balance by offering flexible work hours and wellness spending accounts for all employees to supplement a healthy lifestyle outside of work. We foster the health of our employees through a wide range of initiatives to encourage and reward staff for their participation in physical activities, and we have an onsite fitness facility including daily exercise classes.

We support the growth and continuous learning of our employees by providing ongoing training and an annual education allowance as well post-secondary scholarships for employee dependents. We offer a career, not just a job, where individuals can plan their future using our internal development tool, Career Blueprint.

We promote an active community spirit and our employees play a key role in our community relations activities. One example of this is our employee-led registered charity, Hearts of Blue, which provides assistance to lower profile community based organizations across Alberta. In 2011, we also launched a new community investment program through which each of our employees was invited to allocate a $100 corporate donation to the Alberta-based charitable organization or community group of their choice. This program was a huge success, with donations exceeding $80,000 made to 289 organizations across the province.

We attract the best possible people because our current employees are proud to tell people they are part of an ethical values-based organization that Albertans know and trust.

Shad Smereka, Fountain Tire: Fountain Tire’s strategy to attract talent focuses on providing programs that represent the entire value an associate derives through working for Fountain Tire. By reviewing the results of our engagement survey and interviewing people across the company, we know Fountain Tire associates place high value on: Support in associate development and providing defined career plans, recognition and incentives for contribution to the organization, policies and programs that support a balanced lifestyle, competitive market wages; pay for performance organization, a safe working environment, comprehensive benefit programs for associates and their family and discounts for associates and their family on tires, parts, and services at all Fountain Tire locations

Shane Sabatino, The Brick: I remember listening to Jack Welch a few years ago and he said the number one way you can retain and attract the best people is simply by winning – “If you win,” he said, “employees you have will want to stay on your team and employees you don’t have will want to join your team”. If you have the best talent pipeline you will control your own destiny and that will lead to a winning organization. Our overall strategy to retain and attract top talent in the future tight labor market is to win in terms of profit, market share and ensure that we are a great company to work for – winning breeds winners. If we are winning, we will have positions available as well as dollars to pay competitive wages and offer benefits and additional perks to our employees.

Attracting the best and brightest is important, but we must also ensure we are retaining our current employees – it is incumbent upon our organization to ensure that we treat our current employees extremely well so we don’t have high turnover. Losing top talent is one of the worst corporate sins and we just cannot afford to do that, so we must treat employees with respect, pay them competitively and ensure they are appreciated and having fun – it is a never ending quest for The Brick.

We’re also launching a new careers website in late 2011 that will showcase all that the Brick has to offer. We believe it is critical to market to current and future employees what the Brick has to offer. We are also investing in our leadership team to ensure that they have the tools and training to make the right hires to ensure they will fit with the Brick’s culture, but also fit in the role they are applying for – the fit is so important if we want to continue to win and serve our customers better.

In the end, we don’t want to change too much. Our company is headed in the right direction, and we want to retain first and attract second. We want our programs and practices to build a great company to work for in all types of economies. If we treat employees better than our competitors we have a great chance to win and pass the fruits onto our employees, customers and the communities we serve. Sharing in the success is the key and will enable us to have the top leadership pipeline in good times and tough times.

Harmony Carter, PCL: PCL, I feel, has always had an advantage when it comes to recruiting new talent. Our reputation as a preferred employer, matched with the continuing efforts of our own people to refer their peers and colleagues, has provided PCL with a pool of talented and experienced recruits. Through employee feedback, PCL has placed on Canada’s 50 Best Employers every year, which is a testament of the people working here. We are a 100 per cent employee-owned company, and as owners, we want others to know PCL is a great place to work.

Another way we attract talent is through our unique ability to offer diverse positions and meaningful work projects. With PCL growing at such a fast pace, our website features a variety of careers—from office personnel to field experts—throughout North America.

Although we do use traditional forms of marketing, we believe that the best form of marketing is through our people. We believe in supporting ongoing professional development and lifelong learning of each of our employees. We’re dedicated, through our College of Construction, to providing innovative and effective workplace learning and development solutions.  Investing in our people and contributing to their success is what drives our success as a company.