Business Alumni Magazine (Fall04/Winter05)

fall/winter s c h o o l o f b u s i n e s s g o e s p u b l i c04-05 www.bus.ualberta.ca

businessbusinessuofaU n i v e r s i t y o f A l b e r t a S c h o o l o f B u s i n e s s A l u m n i M a g a z i n e

business

Strategy and Purpose

business magazine fall04.qxp 11/26/04 11:35 AM

Unless otherwise noted, please contact the School’s External Relations Office atUnless otherwise noted, please contact the School’s External Relations Office atUnless otherwise noted, please contact the School’s External Relations Office at

492-4083 in Edmonton or toll-free at 1-877-362-3222 in Canada & the US.492-4083 in Edmonton or toll-free at 1-877-362-3222 in Canada & the US.492-4083 in Edmonton or toll-free at 1-877-362-3222 in Canada & the US.

You may also wish to send us an e-mail requesting further information:You may also wish to send us an e-mail requesting further information:You may also wish to send us an e-mail requesting further information:

[email protected] or go to [email protected] or go to [email protected] or go to www.bus.ualberta.ca.

January 14 Golden Bears’ Hockey Night in the Bears’ Den (Bears vs. Saskatchewan Huskies)

Eric Geddes Breakfast Lecture Series, Edmonton Erhan Erkut, Professor, Vargo Chair, and WinspearSenior Fellow, Finance and Management Science

January 14 - 17 MBA GamesLaval University, Québec City

January 22 Undergraduate Awards Ceremony - Stollery Centre

January 26 Alberta Business Family Institute (ABFI) Signature Event

A Family Tradition... Changing the Landscapewith Melcor Developments and the Melton Family

February Calgary Business Alumni Lunch

February 2 AIESEC Corporate BreakfastChateau Lacombe Crowne Plaza

February 8 MBA Awards Ceremony – Stollery Centre

February 10 Fort McMurray Business Alumni Reception

February 11 Eric Geddes Breakfast Lecture Series, EdmontonJennifer Argo, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Business Economics and Law

February 21 - 25 Rocky Mountain Business SeminarJasper Park Lodge, Jasper

February BAA Members’ Reception

February 28 Alberta Business Family Institute SeminarLeadership, Wealth, and Business Planning:Creating a Strategic Blueprint

March 1 Alberta Business Family Institute SeminarCreating and Fostering Relationships as a Trusted Advisor to Families

March 2 Alberta Business Family Institute Seminar Familial Leadership: Transferring Values, Culture, and Ethics

March 4 Eric Geddes Breakfast Lecture Series, EdmontonKarim Jamal, Alexander Hamilton Professor of Business, Accounting and MIS

March 23 Canadian Business Leader Award DinnerShaw Conference Centre, EdmontonRecipient: Ross Grieve, President and CEOPCL Construction Group Ltd.

April BAA Annual Luncheon

April 4 Alberta Business Family Institute SeminarMoney and the Family Business:Managing Capital and Liquidity

April 5 Alberta Business Family Institute SeminarSuccession, Estate, Business and Management Plans:Tying Them All Together

events

It’s hard to imagine but I still get excited when I hear about our graduates’ and our

students’ amazing stories. Six years and 12 issues of the alumni magazine later, and

it’s still a thrill to catch up with someone I met at the School’s first alumni event

in San Francisco back in March 2001. On page 11 you will learn about California

resident Priya Saraswati who changed her career in banking into a passion for the fashion

industry. Turn to page 24 and you’ll find out how a former Students’ Union President

turned his energy and a passion for people into leading Royal LePage’s 10,700 realtors. In

fact, we decided to continue profiling the real estate industry as so many of our alumni

including Todd Throndson on page 27 have made their mark there. The three MBA alumni

featured on our cover share their life stories starting on page 15.

On a different note, on December 1, 2004, the Alberta School of Business went ‘public.’

No, you won’t find us listed on any stock exchanges, but the analogy of a private

company going public by selling stock is not entirely misguided. We’re looking to our

shareholders – our alumni and friends, business and civic leaders, faculty, staff, and

students – to help us attract $20 million in private investment and thereby contribute

to the Building on Our Strengths: Investing in Our People fundraising campaign. Find out how

much has been raised to date and from whom by turning to page 22 and the two inserts

in the magazine (one explains the business campaign in detail and how it ties in to the

University’s one, the other lists our donors and tells some of their stories).

Business is published twice a year by the University of Alberta School ofBusiness. If you would like an additional free subscription or would liketo send in a comment or update your address, please contact us at:

External Relations, University of Alberta School of Business 4-40 Business Building, Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2R6

e-mail: [email protected] site: www.bus.ualberta.catelephone: (780) 492-4083toll-free in canada and the us: 1-877-362-3222fax: (780) 492-8748

Dean: Michael PercyEditor and Director, External Relations Elke ChristiansonAssistant Editor and Manager, Communications Zanne CameronDesign: Lime Design Inc.Printing: McCallum Printing Group Inc.Cover image: Tina Chang

this issue

business magazine fall04.qxp 12/1/04 11:17 AM Page b

fall/winter 04-05 www.bus.ualberta.ca

features

2 Alumni ProfilesAs always, catch up with former classmates

8 Around the WorldThree graduates, three degrees, three continentsby d e b by wa l d m a n a n d wa n da v i v e q u i n

15 Strategy and PurposeFind out how three alumni have strategicallypositioned themselvesby wa n da v i v e q u i n

22 School of Business goes PublicLearn more about the campaign and howalumni can support it

24 No BoundariesTwo high achievers are making their mark in real estateby a l a n f i n d l a y a n d d e b by wa l d m a n

departments

28 Business Alumni Association News

30 Student NewsBCom Student News, 30BCom Student Profile, 31MBA Student News, 33MBA Student Profile, 35

36 Class Notes

44 Business Perspective

15

44

businessuofacontents

U n i v e r s i t y o f A l b e r t a S c h o o l o f B u s i n e s s A l u m n i M a g a z i n e

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2 u of a business � fall/winter 2004-2005

A Man of his WordWalking the walk

alumniprofile i by z a n n e c a m e ro n

For Michael Walesiak, ’93 BCom, it’s all about being a man of his word.For Michael Walesiak, ’93 BCom, it’s all about being a man of his word.The recently married proud new father has a passion for active The recently married proud new father has a passion for active citizenry and values the freedoms he’s got as a Canadian citizen.citizenry and values the freedoms he’s got as a Canadian citizen.

e has a passion for free-dom of speech, open air-waves, and independentthought. He walks the walkat work and in his spare

time.“It’s important to be listened to, tofeel comfortable to voice an opinion,”says the thirty something accountant.

During the day,Walesiak is a Char-tered Accountant and Chartered Busi-ness Valuator with Deloitte & Touche,in Edmonton. His day to day work in-volves business valuation, corporate fi-nance and consulting, some bankruptcyand dispute resolution, which all soundsboring as heck, but really involves closepersonal contact with a diverse groupof businesses, people and problems as

well as a lot of relationship and trustbuilding.Walesiak’s strength is in lis-tening, and in facilitating awareness andsharing knowledge with the stakehold-ers. Not an easy task when one con-siders the aspects of busi-ness issues – personality,finance, tax issues, marketassessment are never thesame. “Everything revolvesaround the relationshipsthat I build. If those aresolid, then my reputation isthat I do good work.”

That reputation is critical to Wale-siak who at the end of the day wantsnothing more. “It feels good to be ableto stand in front of a colleague, or thepresident of a company, or a manager,and to hold your own, to have respectand to be listened to.”

So, it is not surprising at all that inhis spare time Walesiak sits on the boardof the University of Alberta’s indepen-dent radio station, CJSR. “Everyoneshould listen to CJSR. It’s such an im-portant resource,” remarks Walesiak

H

MichaelWalesiak

He has a passionfor freedom ofspeech, openairwaves, andindependentthought.

“It feels good to be able tostand in front of a colleague,

or the president of a company,or a manager, and to hold your

own, to have respect and to be listened to.”


u of a business � fall/winter 2004-2005 3

who believes that it is important to bediligent and to seek out veracity and in-dependent sources of information. Hevalues the independent voices aired onCJSR as an important balance to themammoth corporate conglomeratesthat rule the airwaves. CJSR is certainlyeclectic and the epitome of an ‘indie’radio station, airing everything fromradical hip-hop, to BBC news broad-casts, and virtually everything in be-tween.

“What I love about it is the passion,the freedom to listen to those differentpoints of view. It’s good to be chal-lenged.Virtually anyone can approachCJSR and they’ll try to get you on.”Walesiak says he is not a radical, butviews the support of freedom of speechas one way to contribute to the com-munity and to be a good citizen.“Democracy is there for the taking. It’sgood to challenge the status quo.”

Walesiak’s personal heroes are peo-ple such as Noam Chomsky, RalphNader, Amy Goodman, and late nightpolitical spin commentator Jon Stew-art. Lately he would include his wife oftwo years, Denise Pon-Walesiak, andhis new 10 month old baby, Devyn.An-other family passion is travel. Michael,Devyn, and Denise would like to travelto Japan eventually. Denise and Michaelhave already been to China,Thailand,Europe, and Mexico.

“Democracy is there

for the taking.

It’s good to challenge

the status quo.”

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y degree stacks up withtheirs,” says Jackson, whowas hired five years ago towork in Alkermes’ engi-

neering department. He stayed there fortwo years before moving to the businessdevelopment department.

“That’s where I wanted to be, butit was a roundabout way of gettingthere,” he acknowledges. “I’d say theSchool of Business MBA allowed me,once I was here, to get where I wantedto be in the business development roleand in more of a managerial capacity.”

Jackson has such a broad backgroundhe could probably work in just aboutany department at Alkermes whose 500employees design, develop, market, andsell drug-delivery systems.

Before enroling at the U of A in 1996,Jackson had earned a BSc in Biochem-istry at the University of Calgary andhad worked in the oil and gas industry.It didn’t interest him as much as he’dhoped so he decided to apply his sciencebackground to the biotech industry.

From what he could see, the bestplace to do that was the U of A wherehe could earn a Masters in ChemicalEngineering by day and an MBA atnight. “The U of A is a unique school inthat it allowed me to do both withouta lot of work experience,” he says.

“I liked the part-time MBA becauseI found the groups more experienced.Some of the people I was with in theevening had worked for 12 or 15 yearsand had a real broad base and I learnedfrom them.”

Jackson was especially grateful for thepractical aspects of the program. In oneclass, he had the opportunity to workwith a local business, a rock climbinggym. In another, visiting union and se-nior management representatives spokeabout negotiations and joint bargaining.

Meanwhile, in Engineering, Jacksonspent his first year working with en-gineering professor Rick Batycky whohad just arrived from MIT and was help-ing to design better drug-delivery sys-tems.The next year, he worked witha medical school professor who was de-veloping a way to freeze a tumor with-out affecting the surrounding tissue.

Batycky tried, unsuccessfully, to con-vince Jackson to apply to a PhD pro-gram at MIT. “I’d had enough school,”Jackson says, but, because the idea in-trigued him, he looked into it.That’show he learned that MIT had a one-yearMasters program that would allow him

to work internationally and get moreexperience in chemical engineering.

As part of the MIT program, Jack-son worked at GE Plastics in Indiana andat Mitsubishi Chemical in Kirashiki,Japan.The hands-on experience gavehim the background he needed to landa job in the engineering departmentat Alkermes working for his former pro-fessor, Batycky. But it was the MBA that

alumniprofile i by d e b by wa l d m a n

As Director of Business Development for Alkermes, a biotech firm inCambridge, Massachusetts, Blair Jackson works alongside MBA and PhDgraduates from top academic institutions including Harvard, Prince-ton, Yale, and MIT.

“M

From Molecule to MarketDesigning, developing, marketing and selling drug-delivery systems

“I’d say the School of

Business MBA allowed me to get

where I wanted to be in the

business development role

and in more of a

managerial capacity.”

“I enjoy negotiating and I just

like the health care industry.

It’s parallel to the oil and gas

industry: it’s a high-risk business

with a big payoff.”

Blair Jackson



helped him land where he reallywanted to be.

One of Jackson’s primary re-sponsibilities at Alkermes is work-ing on partnerships and licensingwith the company’s drug partners,Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.

“I love it,” he says.“It’s a lot of fun.I like the industry. I enjoy negoti-ating and I just like the health careindustry. It’s parallel to the oil andgas industry: it’s a high-risk businesswith a big payoff. In oil and gas, youdrill a hole and, at the end of the day,you might hit pay dirt. In biotech,you take a molecule that you thinkmight work in a certain way and, atthe end of the trials, you find out.”

The payout is huge – Jackson es-timates that it costs between $500and $700 million to bring a drugfrom molecule to market. But thepayoff is worth it.

“You’re developing therapeu-tics for patients,” he says. “Notonly are you coming out aheadeconomically, but you’re helpingpeople.”

alumniprofile i by a l a n f i n d l a y

An Ideal MarriageWorking partnerships

itting in her office perchedabove an intersection on thesouthern border of U of T’scampus,Vogwill, ’81 MBA,

appears to have found a focus in the prismbetween a dynamic career and a love oflearning by working for Bell Canada Lab-oratories.Vogwill oversees a $6-millionprogram partnering university re-searchers and the communications com-pany’s own product development branch.

She’s also honeymooning as a PhDstudent in industrial engineering.Look-ing back at the variety of her pursuitsover the years,Vogwill says she sim-ply blazed a jagged trail that is muchmore the reality now than it was 20years ago.“I was way ahead of my time.People kind of acknowledge that mygeneration is probably the last to workfor a company 35 years. Behind the babyboom, it’s going to be difficult, if noteven a reality, for people to go to workat the same job for that long.”

Vogwill’s path took its first suddenturn after she left Sussex University anddiscovered that the value of her degreein the working world wasn’t quite as highas its personal worth.“I had this Frenchdegree and I didn’t think it was terri-bly marketable,” she says.“I felt I neededto get something more practical.”

Following her brother to Edmonton,she considered taking the hospital ad-ministration program before opting forher Masters in Business Administration.

Lacking a math background,Vogwillsaid the program was a tough ride.“That’s one of the reasons I’m veryproud. I was always very proud to getmy MBA because of the challenge I hadto face. I really worked my you-know-what off because I had to make up themath and didn’t have the background.”

Moving to Toronto with her husband,Vogwill went on to complete her ed-ucation degree and to teach in bothGuelph and Toronto. “I taught for awhile and then I decided technologywas where it’s at,” she said.Trouble was,Vogwill had no background in com-puters at all. Undaunted, she boughtthe manuals for the major word pro-cessing and data-entry programs andproceeded to teach herself the basics.“I tend to use the steep-end technique,”she says with a smile.She started offteaching what she had learned, all thewhile building up her own expertise.

Vanessa Vogwill’s resume is a kaleidoscope of careers. Blended togetheris a kaleidoscope of careers. Blended togetherare a university degree in languages from England, an MBA from theare a university degree in languages from England, an MBA from theU of A, an education degree from Toronto, stints as a school teacher,U of A, an education degree from Toronto, stints as a school teacher,computer software instructing, and Y2K consulting for the likes ofcomputer software instructing, and Y2K consulting for the likes ofCanada Trust and the City of Toronto.Canada Trust and the City of Toronto.

S

page 6 >



hen again, it could be that he’sbeen too busy to be miserable.

Take, for instance, the dayhe was interviewed for this

article. He was driving on US Interstate94 from Holland, Michigan, to Chicago.In the past 24 hours, he’d also been inHouston and Phoenix, and he’d gotten,at most, two hours of sleep.

Now he was headed back to the air-port in Chicago to catch a flight. Towhere, he wasn’t sure. It all dependedon which destination made the mostsense upon arrival at the airport.

It might have been Scottsdale, Ari-zona, where his rubber recycling com-pany is headquartered. Or it could havebeen back to Houston where he is com-pleting due diligence in preparation forpurchasing an oil and gas company. Orhe might have opted to fly to Victoria,home to his wife of 31 years and theirtwo adult children. He makes sure tosee them at least once every ten days.

“It’s not for everyone and, certainlyon the path I’ve chosen, there has beenan incredible amount of pressure andstress, and, if you’re bothered by that,you shouldn’t go into this type of busi-ness,” he says. “Any business venture,particularly any start-up venture, strug-gles with getting finance, and I like thechallenge of that. I thrive on challenge.”

For his first ten years out of the U ofA, Fimrite worked for various com-

panies and taught at NAIT and atGrande Prairie Regional College. Butfor the past 20 years, he has been an en-trepreneur. He’s owned constructioncompanies, technology businesses andreal estate development concerns.

“Even my children have had a diffi-cult time labeling what it is that I do,”he says. “I don’t pigeonhole easily.”

Fimrite has set himself a particularlyformidable challenge as of late: “I havea macro picture of businesses I wantto create, industries I want to create,and systems of managing I want to cre-ate,” he says. “It incorporates involv-

An Incubator and a BuilderFinding appropriate rates of return on investments

alumniprofile i by d e b by wa l d m a n

She went on to do some consult-ing for various companies, ulti-mately landing contracts amid themad scramble for corporations toupdate their computer systems be-fore New Year 2000.

She credits both her MBA andteaching background for the versa-tility that has allowed her to makesuch unorthodox leaps in her career.She remembers the MBA as an ex-perience where you’re thrown intothe deep end of a stifling workloadand forced to learn how to prioritizeyour way through to the end.Thatand the ability to teach are skills thattransfer easily to most any sector.

“The portability of those skills,to me, that’s the real value.They spillover into every aspect of life.The skillsthat I learned in the MBA programhave been useful to me every day ofmy life.Learning how to educate peo-ple, the skills you need to be a goodteacher are highly undervalued.”

Three years ago, she joined upwith Bell and took on her latest pro-ject. What began in Ontario isquickly expanding to universitiesacross the country including a po-tential partnership with the U of A.She says the program is an ideal mar-riage between supporting the rawacademic research of university labswith a direction that gives value backto the communications company.

Her own research is basedaround designing a hand-held PalmPilot-style device specifically forphysicians. Once again, she’s founda way to tap into her diverse back-ground to forge a new path. “Myplan is to put my studies back intohealth care,” she says.

Ask Elroy Fimrite, ‘73 BCom, his favorite thing about his work and hisanswer is as quick as it is articulate: “Probably what I like best aboutit is that in the 30 years since I graduated, there hasn’t been a sin-gle solitary day that I get up in the morning and say, ‘I hate my job andI don’t want to go to work. ’ ”

T

“The skills that I learnedin the MBA program

have been useful to me every day of my life.”

“I have a macro picture of

businesses I want to create...it

incorporates involving legislation

around the world, materials and

products around the world, and

financial systems. It’s a very com-

plex picture, I’ll tell you that.”



ing legislation around the world, materials and prod-ucts around the world, and financial systems. It’s a verycomplex picture, I’ll tell you that.”

In addition to acquiring the oil and gas company inHouston, Fimrite is on the cusp of revamping the rubberrecycling industry. During the past eight years, he’s made47 trips to China in large part to learn about the pro-cess of devulcanization or rubber reclaiming.

In 1998, he acquired a Chinese technology for the pro-cess. Since then, he’s gone through the process of com-mercializing it for North America. According to his re-search, nobody has made an appropriate rate of returnon their investment in the rubber recycling industry in30 years, but he’s confident he can change that.

“The current processes are equivalent to making anomelet by throwing the whole egg into the beater andtrying to get the shell out afterwards,” he says. “You uselarge amounts of energy, a high cost of equipment main-tenance, and they produce, by and large, a relatively poorquality product typically at a price that’s much higher thanwhat they can sell it at in the marketplace.”

The new process is not only more efficient, he says,it doesn’t pollute. He estimates it will be another yearbefore he has a plant up and running somewhere in NorthAmerica. “I’m not in a rush,” he says. “I’m focusing on theoil and gas industry now.”

Once the plant is up and running, however, he’ll leave the daily operations to someone else. “I’m not interestedin going into the office day to day doing the same thing,”he says. “I can hire people to do that. I am an incubatorand a builder. I like to build things and find innovative so-lutions to problems.”

Co-op SuccessMaking a stellar impression

To say Claire NivenTo say Claire Niven is thrilled with her co-op placement at GE Consumer Finance - Americas is some-thing of an understatement.

alumniprofile ii by d e b by wa l d m a n

t has just been tremendous,” says Niven, whostarted at GE in May after completing her first co-op placement with the Government of Alberta. “Iwork with such a great team and the environment

here is great. It’s a meritocracy and hard work pays off.”A Human Resources major, Niven is working as an HR co-

ordinator at GE Consumer Finance, which provides customerservice, collections, and special processing support for a num-ber of Canadian and US private-label credit card portfolios.

Niven manages the front-line recruitment process at theEdmonton call centre site ensuring that hiring targets are be-ing met. She also fields inquiries about employment and ben-efits and facilitates some training with new associates.

“The days here go by so fast,” she says.“I’ve never once lookedat the clock and thought to myself, ‘It’s only 11 o’clock.’”

The real-world speed is teaching herimportant lessons in how to prioritizeand deal with interruptions. “I feel reallyconfident about the experience I’ve re-ceived, and I feel really confident aboutwhere I’ll be when I finish school,” shesays. “I would love employment with GEwhen I finish my degree or even beforeif they’ll take me part time.”

Given the stellar impression Niven ismaking, that’s a distinct possibility.

“Claire has been fabulous to workwith,” says Michelle Provencher, one ofher supervisors. “We would love to keepher on. One of the reasons she’s been agreat fit is that right from the start she’sbeen very responsible, very accountable,and she’s been able to take over our front-line recruiting process and run with it.She’s made process improvements; she’ssimplified it for our team as well as for the

“I“I

page 8 page 8 >>

Elroy Fimrite in his office in Dalin, China

“... She’s taken a lotof ownership andshe did that veryearly on into her

co-op term, which is more than we’d

expected from a student.”



interviewers. She’s taken a lot of own-ership and she did that very early on intoher co-op term, which is more than we’dexpected from a student.”

That’s all the more impressive con-sidering that Niven’s co-op experiencealmost never got off the ground. She ap-plied for her first placement after hersecond year in part because she’d beenimpressed with the great jobs herbrother had gotten as part of his Facultyof Engineering Co-op placements.

Because she didn’t have connectionsin the business world, she felt the co-opprogram was the best way for her to getexperience. But she was applying fromAustria where she’d done an exchangeprogram and she didn’t get any offers.Upon returning to Edmonton, she ap-plied for summer jobs, but the com-petition was stiffer and, once again, shewas unsuccessful.

“I was in that vicious cycle where youcan’t get a job because you don’t haveexperience and you can’t get experiencebecause you can’t get a job,” she says.“I was almost ready to leave the co-opprogram, but then I realized that if Icouldn’t even get a job within the co-op program, how was I going to get ajob in the real world? The experiencewas truly a lesson in persistence for me.”

Niven loves the responsibility of be-ing in the work world. Her voice fillswith enthusiasm when she talks aboutthe work culture at GE and how muchshe appreciates being held accountablefor everything she does. It’s hard to imag-ine she’d even want to return to a class-room. But one of the many lessons she’slearned through her co-op placementsis the value of a university education.

“I want to move up and, in order tomove up, you need a degree,” she says.“The thing I love about school is thatyou’re always meeting new people andthat’s true of the work force, too. ButI love the fact that you have discretionover your own schedule.There are a lotof pros to school.”

Here is a list of some of our U of A Schoolof Business grads and students at GE.

B u s i n e s s C o o p e r a t i v e B u s i n e s s C o o p e r a t i v e E d u c a t i o n P r o g r a mE d u c a t i o n P r o g r a mS e p t e m b e r t o D e c e m b e r 2 0 04 S e p t e m b e r t o D e c e m b e r 2 0 04

GE Fanuc AutomationMaureen Arcila-Arenas

GE Consumer FinanceClaire Niven

GE Capital Equipment FinancingZachary Solikoski; Lan Trang

GE Medical SystemsShirley Ngo

Permanent Employees

G E C o n s u m e r F i n a n c eG E C o n s u m e r F i n a n c e

Michelle ProvencherJennifer WiebeChris WilliamsNicole AsselinRenee AmyotteKelly BlackettJenny ChenTim FairbanksElaine Siu

G E F a n u c A u t o m a t i o nG E F a n u c A u t o m a t i o n

Jeff Lucente

G E C a p i t a l E q u i p m e n t F i n a n c i n gG E C a p i t a l E q u i p m e n t F i n a n c i n g

Erin Johnson; Chad Fisk; Cory Pfannmuller

L to R: Claire Niven and Michelle Provencher

“Claire has been fabulous to work with,” says Michelle

Provencher, one of her supervisors.

As the Faculty with

the most international

student exchanges at

the U of A, it makes

sense that some of our

alumni continue this love

affair as an expat living

overseas.

Some, like David Burke

in China and Cameron

Duncan in Africa, have

chosen a different conti-

nent altogether to live

and work on. Others, like

Priya Saraswati, stayed

on the North American

continent but she hopes

to make her mark in the

international fashion

industry. All three serve

as wonderful role models

to our current students

who are debating what

to do after graduation

and where.

getty im

ages



AroundA

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Three graduates, three degrees, three continents



“Chinese people really haveno concept of lining up in an orderly wayand, every now and then, I have beenknown to physically lift someone back towhere they were standing behind me,”Colonel Burke says from Beijing. “I tower

above everyone else so it is not difficult to do,” he laughs.After more than three and a half decades in the Cana-

dian military, Burke has decided to make China his last post-ing and will retire this year. Burke says while he never imag-ined he would spend his entire working life in the military,he has no regrets. “I have been remarkably lucky and it hasbeen a most excellent job,” he says.

Burke and his Australian-born wife Penny moved to Chinain 2000, leaving sparsely populated Canada for the crushof Beijing and its 14 million inhabitants. Both are fluent inMandarin and, as active outdoor people, use their free timeto explore attractions off the beaten track near the city. “Weescape to the mountains often and will drive about 60 km togo walking on some of the wilder parts of the Great Wallof China,” Burke says.

As a trained civil engineer and amateur historian, Burkesays visiting this remarkable 4500-milestructure built over 2000 years ago to pro-tect the Chinese from northern invasionsalways fills him with awe and admiration.

As a Defence attaché, Burke is respon-sible for establishing and maintaining re-lationships with the military of China andMongolia. Canada has no military forcesin the region but does have a strong diplo-matic presence especially in China.

“China is fairly unique given the fact it is a communist statewith the party having many fingers in policy and the di-rection of the military,” Burke says.

China is Canada’s third-largest trading partner and is cur-rently its largest source of immigrants.

School of Business Professor Rolf Mirus, who has visitedBurke, says, that for Canadian exporters, there was no moreof a dynamic and challenging market than China. “The dy-namics are clear: China’s economy has grown by nearly tenpercent annually in recent years.That growth is reflectedin the fact that, as of very recently, China’s imports haveexceeded her exports with Canadian merchandise exportsto that country showing 75 percent growth in nominal valuefor 1999-2003,” Mirus says. “This means an average growthrate of 16 percent per year,” he adds.

For Burke, staying on top of current issues in China andfostering relations with the military remain top of his listof priorities. One interesting fact he likes to point out isthat China now has more troops involved in the United Na-tions peacekeeping forces than Canada. “Our contributionsas Canadians are still in demand, but we are no longer thepeacekeepers we were,” he says. As a measure of good bi-lateral relations, Burke says there are now Chinese studentsstudying peacekeeping in Canada.

Travelling with the Chinese Peoples Lib-eration Army (PLA) has been one of themore unusual experiences for Burke. “ThePLA is an army of the Party and is thereforetreated differently than any other organi-zations,” he says. “You are talking about amassive entourage of buses and escorts andtravelling with them is much simpler thantrying to navigate through the bureaucracyon your own,” he adds.

Reflecting back on his first visit to China

At 1.9 metres tall, Colonel David Burke, ’98 EMBA,

who is Canada’s Defense Attaché to China and

Mongolia, more than stands out in a crowded

Oriental market. In fact, sometimes, when the frustra-

tions of living in the world’s most populous country really

get to him, he literally takes matters into his own hands.Colonel David Burke’98 EMBA, China

Burke's main responsi-bility is to get to knowand understand the is-sues that motivate anddrive the military andits relations with the

government.

Canada’s DefenceAttaché to China

B Y W A N D A V I V E Q U I N



in 1998 as an executive MBA student, Burkesays much has changed, most notably, pol-lution levels in Beijing.Thousands of poplarshave since been planted and he says thereare now far fewer days when he is not ableto see the mountains to the west of the city.

Burke was part of the second ExecutiveMBA program run in conjunction with theUniversity of Calgary. “It was a marvelouscourse, very well designed, and, in manyways, drew on the strength of both businessschools,” he says.

Burke did his MBA while still working as Area Engineerin the Land Force Western Area Headquarters based in Ed-monton. “I was thinking of post-service employment andit is not such a good thing when someone asks you when youdid your last degree and you have to go back to somewherein the 80s,” he says.

Burke’s last degree had, in fact, been undertaken as a stu-dent at the Pakistan Army Staff College in Quetta in 1984.He obtained his Bachelor of Science with Honours from theUniversity of Baluchistan majoring in War Studies. His stud-ies were part of an old Commonwealth exchange program,a vestige of colonial ties with India predating the 1947 sep-aration with Pakistan.

Time in Pakistan was a real highlight for Burke and his wifewho filled their spare time playing polo and exploring thecountryside in the shadow of the world’s highest mountains.

Back in Edmonton doing his MBA, things were a little dif-ferent as he juggled raising two young sons, working forthe military, and studying. “I lived in the spare bedroomand really only ever had Saturday nights off from study,”he says.

After graduating in 1998, he told the military he wantedto leave and they came back to him with the position in China,an offer he says was just too good to refuse. “They offeredme promotion to full Colonel and, when we worked out thenet present value of all the options, we decided on China,”he says enthusiastically.

Mandarin lessons with Penny followed and,in 2000, they headed east afterdeciding it was best for their twoteenage sons Alistair and Robertto stay in Canada.The boys havevisited China several times and en-joy the contrast to life on Vancou-ver Island where they go to school.

Living in China during the SARScrisis in 2003 gave Colonel Burkea real insight into how the countryhandles difficult situations. “They dealtwith it in a real Leninist fashion by clos-ing down all the villages suspected of

having infections, firing top officials, and,then, also pushing down the responsibil-ity onto the villages,” he says. “It was a frus-trating time to be in China and I don’t thinkwe will ever know the full extent of whathappened,” he adds.

Colonel Burke’s posting has also takenhim to Mongolia, a country friendly withCanada that reminds him very much of Al-berta, he says.

One last question for Colonel Burke:How will China fare in 2008 when Beijing hosts the Olympicsfor the first time in history? “They will be ready and willdo an amazing job,” Colonel Burke says without hesitation,having lived and jostled for space in Beijing, and it is hardnot to believe him.

How will China fare in 2008 when Beijing

hosts the Olympics for the first time in

history? “They will beready and will do an

amazing job.”

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Even as a little girl, Priya was passionate

about the fashion industry. She also had

a strong desire to build her own company.

However, translating this dream into a reality

was an enormous challenge.

Pursuing yourPassion

In 1997, Priya Saraswati receivedher Bachelor of Commerce degree fromthe School of Business at the Universityof Alberta where she majored in JapanStudies. She participated in an exchangeprogram in her third year with the Sophia

University in Tokyo. “My year in Tokyo was one of the great-est experiences of my life. I would recommend it to any-one. I was completely thrown into another culture and lan-guage and it was sink or swim,” explains Priya.

During her one-year stint in Tokyo, Priya met her futurehusband Eric, an American who was working in Toyko atthe time.A few years after graduation, Priya and Eric decidedto settle down in San Francisco.The School of Business gavePriya the foundation she needed to land an exciting job in theinvestment banking field with CIBC World Markets. “It was

B Y C A R R I E P O H L

page 12 >



the middle of the dot com boom when there were Initial Pub-lic Offerings for technology companies almost every day. Thiswas a fun, exciting time. I was flying fromone end of the country to the other on aweekly basis,” says Priya. She was workinglong hard hours, nearly 90 hours per week,rarely taking a day off.When the markettanked in 2000, the deals became muchharder to complete and, in 2002, it was timeto pursue something new.

Even as a little girl, Priya was passion-ate about the fashion industry. She also hada strong desire to build her own company.However, translating this dream into a re-ality was an enormous challenge. Priya’s firststep was to spend four months as an ap-prentice for A Motion Studio.This is whereshe learned about the garment industry and

the ins and outs of bringing aline to production.This is alsowhere she met her businesspartner,Yugala Priti, who wasthe women’s designer for A Mo-tion at the time.

Approximately a year ago, theduo officially joined forces tolaunch a fashion design company,Saffron Rare Threads LLC. Priya’sbusiness background nicely com-plemented Yugala’s style of design.“Many designers have great designideas, but they lose out because theydon’t know how to run the business.This is a very important part of theequation, especially given the highly-competitive nature of the industry,” ex-plains Priya.

The two young women have createda line of garments that targets professionalwomen who want day-to-night versatil-ity.The team’s goal is to double sales eachseason and they are off to a good start withtheir collection hitting seven stores this fall.The main sales thrust will be centred onwholesale sales to retail stores. However, per-sonalized fittings for individual women, oth-erwise known as trunk shows,have also been extremelyvaluable in providing im-mediate feedback.

Priya is bursting with ex-citement as she describes her vision for thenew venture. “I realize it will take yearsto build a brand, but it will be worth the ef-

fort. It is a difficult roadto success for a small ap-parel company but, witheach client we acquireand milestone we hit, itencourages us to keepstriving for more.” Otherthan work, Priya also findstime to enjoy the Bay Areawith her husband Eric. Shespecifically likes the cultureof San Francisco and the ver-satility of skiing one day in the moun-tains and camping by the ocean the next.

To check out Saffron’s designs, visit:www.saffronrarethreads.com

“I realize it will take years to build a brand,but it will be worth the effort. It is a difficult road to success for a

small apparel company,but, with each client weacquire and milestone wehit, it encourages us to keep striving for more.”

Priya SaraswatiPriya Saraswati’97 BCom, California


After 11 yearsliving in London as headof market risk for a bigLondon finance house,Merchant Bank, heheaded for an extended

holiday in southern Europe and South Africaand wound up living in a city he admits manywrite off as having a terrible reputation forviolence and instability.

Duncan settled in Johannesburg, a citynow regarded as the economic powerhouseof South Africa, but with a history check-ered by instability, poverty, and violence.

“I know Jo’Burg has a bad reputationas a violent place, but there are somelovely areas and the quality of life isgreat,” Duncan says from his office atABSA.

He is back working again as a mar-ket risk assessor manager for a SouthAfrican bank where it is his job to keeptabs on any potential ‘Nick Leesons,’who might make catastrophic tradingdecisions for the company.

Duncan says this is the easiest wayto describe to people what he doesfor a living. He likes to use the ex-ample of former British trader

Nick Leeson, who, during the1990s, brought down the investmentempire of Barrings with his bold,unchecked trading on the SingaporeMonetary Exchange in the Far East.

Living in Johannesburg hasopened up a whole new way of life

for the former Edmontonian. He has bought a ‘fantastic house’in an expensive suburb and spends his spare time visiting thenumerous game reserves in the region as well as enjoyingthe city’s fantastic nightlife.

“I visited Jo’burg during my earlier travels and thought,right, I want to live here at some stage,” he says.

“It really has a good vibe and the people are really friendly,”he adds.

Johannesburg is different from many other big cities inAfrica because it was not developed around a major wa-terway or on the coast. Its establishment well inland wasbased around the discovery of gold and, at an altitude ofaround 2000 metres, it enjoys a wonderful climate and su-perb access to some of the country’s premiere attractions– the big game parks.

The sprawling city, now reputedly the third largest in Africabehind Cairo and Lagos, still has its fairshare of problems, Duncan says.

Ten years of democracy have seensome changes for people living in thetownships like Soweto on the outskirtsof Johannesburg such as greater accessto running water, improved sanitation,and electricity, he says.


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Two years ago, Cameron DuncanCameron Duncan (’91 BCom)

said goodbye to parking problems, grey wet

winters, and tiny expensive apartments.

Our Man inAfrica

B Y W A N D A V I V E Q U I N

“I visited Jo’burg duringmy earlier travels and

thought, right, I want tolive here at some stage. It really has a good

vibe and the people are really friendly.”

page 14 >

Cameron Duncan’91 BCom, Africa

getty im

ages


an attempt at conversation goes a long way,” he says.One of the biggest issues facing the present government

was how to manage the generation of blacks people who havelargely gone without education as a result of themassive school burnings that happened duringthe ’80s in protest at apartheid.

Duncan says, contrary to what many peoplebelieve, he knows of no one who sleeps witha gun under their pillow although it is foolishnot to be vigilant in a country where deepseeded economic disparities and historical an-imosities still exist between whites and blacksand rich and poor.

While Johannesburg may seem like just an-other big city, travel just beyond its limits andDuncan says it is very obvious that you are ina developing country. Cape Town, one of theworld’s most desired travel locations, is aneasy plane ride away and there are manymore stunning locations in vast South Africa.

“You definitely know you are in Africawhen you head out and that is one of themost appealing aspects of living here,” hesays.

“It’s a vibrant and amazing place.”

“The fact remains thatblack ownership of busi-nesses has not necessar-ily translated into morewealth overall for the ma-jority of blacks.”

“Black ownership hasreally just created fatblack cats rather than fatwhite cats,” he adds.

Duncan says he islearning some of the local African dialects and has visitedsome of the townships in an effort to better understandthe community.

“It is very easy to shelter yourself in a nice neighborhood,but I think it is important to understand what is going on be-yond,” he says.

“Being able to say hello in an African language, like Zulu,the most common tongue, and to make

“It is very easy to shelter yourself in

a nice neighborhood,but I think it is

important to under-stand what is going

on beyond.”


Left: Cameron and his mothervisit a game reserve.

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u of a businessu of a business �� fall/winter fall/winter 2004-20052004-2005 1515

Strategy and PurposeThe three alumni profiled here represent a career choice we have not featured

in the past. Colonel Paul Wynnyk, ’04 MBA, is Commander of 1 Area Support Group;

Captain Veronica Van Diepen, ’02 MBA, is Public Affairs Officer and a member of the

Reserves; and Major Brian MacGillivray, ’01 MBA, is the COO.

All three are stationed in Edmonton, Alberta.

1 Area Support Group (1 ASG) is made up of over 2000 military and civilian

personnel and is responsible for providing a wide range of logistical, technical,

and materials support for army resources from Thunder Bay, Ontario, in the East

to Victoria, British Columbia, in the West.

S T O R I E S B Y WA N D A V I V E Q U I N


F or example, he can tell you about the gastronomicsignificance of a left leaning, upward staring flatfishto a Japanese officer or the fact flatfish start their lives

swimming straight up and down and then flop over either leftor right. So why does a high ranking officer in the Cana-dian Armed Forces know so much about the topic of flatfish?

It turns out that, in 1992, when Wynnyk was in Cambo-dia on a United Nations Mission serving with a big groupof engineers from all over the world, he was also responsiblefor feeding them. “The Japanese soldiers were very partic-ular about this part of their diet so sourcing these fish in Cam-bodia was something of a logistical challenge,”Wynnyk sayswith a laugh. It was one of the more unconventional re-sponsibilities he has shouldered during his military careerto date.

At 40-years old,Wynnyk has already crammed a whole lotof service into his military career and many of his colleaguessay he is destined for high places. Ask anyone at the 1 AreaSupport Group which Wynnyk leads in Edmonton about theirColonel and it is the same answer each time. “He is a re-ally smart man,” they all say. 1 Area Support Group (1 ASG)is made up of over 2000 military and civilian personnel andis responsible for providing a wide range of logistical, tech-nical and materials support for army resources from Thun-der Bay, Ontario, in the east to Victoria, British Columbiain the west.

Fresh out of the Royal Military College in 1986 armedwith a degree in civil engineering, it did not take long for theambitious young Wynnyk to get his first overseas posting.Shortly after graduating, he was sent off to Germany. “Ilook back at that time as a real peak in my career develop-

It is an unusual fact that Edmonton’s ColonelIt is an unusual fact that Edmonton’s ColonelPaul Wynnyk (’04 MBA) can tell you almost Paul Wynnyk (’04 MBA) can tell you almost anything you ever wanted to know about theanything you ever wanted to know about theecology and life cycle of a flatfish. ecology and life cycle of a flatfish.

C O L O N E L P A U L W Y N N Y K

1616 u of a business u of a business �� fall/winterfall/winter 2004-20052004-2005

Putting l

ment,”Wynnyk says. “We were at the pointy end of the Cana-dian Army, fully resourced, and the training opportunitieswere outstanding,” he says. “It was a perfect training groundand gave me a taste for overseas postings,” he adds.There weremany more postings to come for the enthusiastic combat en-gineer from the small Alberta town of Breton who had anidea he would end up pursuing a career in the armed forces.

Now, as a full Colonel in charge of the 1 ASG,Wynnyk re-mains modest about his achievements and says his greatestreward comes from seeing people come through the ranksand develop through their time in the armed forces.

“There was no pressure at all from my parents to jointhe regular forces,” he adds, even though his father Walter ranthe local army cadet corps. “They thought it was honourableto serve my country,” he says.

Wynnyk believes a military career offers unparalleledopportunities rarely encountered in other professions. Oneof the opportunities offered to Wynnyk was to be part of thefirst major post-Cold War peacekeeping mission in Cam-bodia. “I knew nothing about Cambodia although I had seenthe movie The Killing Fields which came out the year I leftfor Asia,” he says. “There was excitement and trepidation, andit was an era of unbridled optimism with regards to therole of the UN in rebuilding countries,” he adds.

Cambodia’s history up to the time of Wynnyk’s arrivalin 1992 had been horrific. In the 1950s, French colonial-ism gave way to a time of political instability and civil war,made worse by spillover from the war in neighbouring Viet-nam.

From 1975 to 1979, Cambodians were subjected to a dic-tatorship under Pol Pot. It is estimated that more than one

“There was excitement and trepida-

tion, and it was an era of unbridled

optimism with regards to the role

of the UN in rebuilding countries.”


million people were killed by Pot’s Khmer Rouge, which waseventually overthrown in late 1978. For over a decade thecountry remained unstable until the UN was called in to helpwith the establishment of a fair democratic process and arebuilding of the shattered country.

For Wynnyk, Cambodia was a chance to put his leadershipskills to the test when he was told that instead of workingas a mine specialist, he would be responsible for the logis-tical needs of over 2,500 engineers from all over the world.They arrived in a country bristling with between six andten million landmines, the highest concentration of thesedeadly devices in the world. Roads were in an abysmal con-dition, pock-marked with bomb craters the size of Olympicdiving pools, and, living amidst all of this was a decimatedpopulation, psychologically affected by the atrocities com-mitted by the Khmer Rouge.

“It was hugely challenging,”Wynnyk says. “The only waywe could get supplies to the units stationed around the coun-try was by helicopter,” he adds.The only marginally use-able road fortunately lay between Phnom Penh and the coun-try’s only port at Sihanoukville although this was still aseven-hour drive away.Today, this drive takes just two anda half hours. In all,Wynnyk spent a large part of 1992 and1993 in Cambodia heading the logistics section of the en-gineering brigade and taking every opportunity to have a goodlook around the country.

One of the highlights was to visit the famed ruins of AngkorWat, which is now an immensely popular tourist destinationalthough when Wynnyk was therevery little of the extensive restora-tion work had been started. “Therewere no tourists there and we hadto be very careful as the area wasstill heavily mined,” he says.

Today, Cambodia is a populartourist destination and the coun-try’s economy has slowly recoveredbut not as fast as neighbouring Viet-nam. It was a comparison of thesetwo countries’ economies that Wyn-nyk chose for his MBA project forthe international business special-ization. “My project was to ana-lyze the economic impact of capi-talism since the fall of communismin Cambodia, and contrast this with

g leadership to the testu of a businessu of a business �� fall/winter fall/winter 2004-20052004-2005 1717

the economic development in socialist Vietnam over the sametime period.

His conclusions were that, despite UN intervention andhuge injections of foreign aid, the Cambodians still laggedwell behind Vietnam economically. “Corruption and theloss of human capital under the Khmer Rouge have had a hugeeffect,” he says.Wynnyk has been back to Cambodia oncesince leaving in 1993 although he would like to return againto see what kind of further changes have taken place.

Coming back to Canada in 1993,Wynnyk then went on tospend 200 days over the next three years travelling to theBalkans as part of the Canadian commitment to UN forcesdeployed to assist with the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.While the desk job was actually based in Ottawa, it also in-volved an immense amount of travelling between the twocountries.

Wynnyk says he has seen major changes in the way the UNcarries out its operations over the last three decades. “InCanada, we don’t call them peacekeeping operations any-more but peace support operations,” he says. “The classic pic-

ture of UN peacekeepers such as inCyprus where we had opposingforces on either side of a line and theUN in the middle is now rarely thecase,” he adds.

Wynnyk says the variety of op-tions and flexibility offered by a ca-reer in the armed services appealsto him a lot. “It’s one career butmany different jobs and I am onlylimited in what I want to do by me,”he says.

In 2002, another UN mission tookhim to the Congo, which is a formerBelgian colony wracked by civil war,disease, and spill over conflicts fromneighbouring countries like Rwanda,Uganda, and Angola. “I was quite ex-

“The classic picture of UN peacekeepers

such as in Cyprus where we had opposing

forces on either side of a line and the UN

in the middle is now rarely the case.”

page 18 >Colonel Wynnyk in Cambodia with a young friend


cited about going to the Congo and hadlobbied hard to get the job,” he says.“Our role was to stabilize and moni-tor the situation in this country, and theissues facing this nation were similar tothose facing many of the sub-Saharannations,” he adds.

Wynnyk says spending time in coun-tries like the Congo where the miseryof so many caught in the conflict or af-fected by disease like AIDS or malnu-trition does not overly depress him. “Iknow that the work we do is good andmakes a difference,” he says. It was whilestationed in the Congo, however, thatWynnyk heard of his most unusual post-ing. “The army posted me to the Uni-versity of Alberta,” he laughs. In an un-usual move,, the army decided to sendWynnyk to do his MBA on full salary.

His wife Marianne Howell, whom hemet on a blind date in 1999, is a doctorwho works in the clinical departmentat the Dentistry School. “I found do-ing the MBA an incredibly stimulatingtime,” he says. “It was great to be sur-rounded by highly-motivated people,”he adds.

As for what is next on the agenda, heis not too sure although others agree heis on his way to the top.

As a young girl in the 1960s Captain Veronica Van Diepen As a young girl in the 1960s Captain Veronica Van Diepen (’02 MBA) would sit on her father’s lap and watch the then (’02 MBA) would sit on her father’s lap and watch the then very popular television series Hogan’s Heroes. very popular television series Hogan’s Heroes.

The high jinks of this ragtag bunch of cheeky American and British sol-diers in a German POW camp sparked something in Van Diepen whodecided she wanted to see for herself what life in the army was really like.

So, as a 16-year old living in Lambeth Ontario, she enrolled in the air cadetsand then in the army reserves as an armoured soldier.That was until the paperworktrail caught up with her and the ‘system’ realized that she was a woman and couldnot serve in a combat role. “Sure, I was disappointed at the time but now I amglad I don’t have to be out there with all those diesel fumes and the tanks,” she says.

Twenty-four years later she is not so disappointed and says that some peoplein her office jokingly describe her as a “civilian in a uniform.”Van Diepen worksas the public affairs officer for the 1 Area Support Group in Edmonton. She is amember of the Reserves, which means she gets all the benefits and official rank-ings that come from being in the Canadian Forces except for a pension. In re-turn, she retains a choice over whether she gets posted somewhere outside ofEdmonton or not.

1818 u of a business u of a business �� fall/winterfall/winter 2004-20052004-2005

V E R O N I C A VA N D I E P E N

A civilian in uniform


“I am a bit of a homebody actually and like to stay in Ed-monton,” she says. Consequently, the media have come to relyon her because unlike regular forces members who movefrom place to place, van Diepen has become something ofa fixture at the Edmonton Garrison. “They know they can al-ways find me here,” she says.

The involvement of women in the Canadian armed forcescan be traced back to the War of 1812. It was not until af-ter the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was passedthat the Canadian Forces were forced to change their poli-cies towards women and combat. In 1989, Canada finally cel-ebrated its first female infantry soldier.

For Van Diepen and 60 other women enroled in the re-serves in the early 1980s it was, however, a little too earlyand they were re-badged and retrained as administrationclerks.Things have changed a lot since then and the oppor-tunities and achievements for women in combat have beenamazing,” she adds.

Women now occupy the ranks of Brigadier General, Lieu-tenant Colonel, and Major General and make up 17 per-cent of the Canadian Forces.Van Diepen says she loves be-ing in the Reserves. “There is just something about waking upin the morning and knowing you don’t have to worry aboutwhat to wear,” she laughs. “There is also a requirement to stayfit and that’s a great incentive to stay in shape,” she says. Oncea year, the soldiers are put through their paces on a 13km ruck-sack march lugging a 50-pound pack in combat boots and car-rying a weapon. “I respect the institution and the standardsand you know what is expected of you,” van Diepen says.

Her husband Ross Nairne is also a Captain in the Reservesand is presently based in Afghanistan at Camp Julian andhas also had tours in Sierra Leone and Bosnia. “I send him carepackages, we email and phone once a week but its part of thelife, and I am actually quite independent,” she says.

“I have to say I was really impacted by 9/11 but we haveto understand that part of being a soldier means going intothe theatre of war,” she adds.

Van Diepen originally trained as a nurse and spent a fewyears working in the profession but also keeping up with hercommitment to the Reserves. “It was an interesting time be-cause, by day, I would be nursing and, on the weekends, I was

out blowing things up as part of exercises,” she laughs.Finally, in 1995, she began working as a full-time reservist

in Edmonton collecting a bag of military qualifications alongthe way which have helped her in her present role at theEdmonton Garrison. For Van Diepen, managing public affairsgoes far beyond just dealing with media.The focus for heris to get the army integrated as closely as possible withinthe Edmonton community. Of course, the media manage-ment required during a crisis is important, but, for Van Diepen,a strong public profile for the Canadian Forces and a goodunderstanding of what it does is what she strives for.

Van Diepen clearly remembers the day of the “FriendlyFire” incident in Afghanistan in which four soldiers fromthe Edmonton Garrison were killed by American troops. Eightothers were also wounded when a US jet dropped a bomb ontheir unit during a training mission. “It was a crazy time,” shesays. “We were really quite surprised at the incredible levelof media interest in the event and once a decision was madeto hold a memorial event in the city of Edmonton, it becamebigger than anything we could have imagined,” she says.

One of the things that she was very thankful for during thistime was the incredible network of contacts in the com-munity that helped ease the load.Van Diepen credits theextra effort put into community relations by the CanadianForces in Edmonton for this. “Our big push is to be seenin the community doing things,” she says. Over the years, thispush has resulted in the Canadian Forces becoming muchmore visible, involved, and, consequently, understood bymembers of the wider community. “We now get regularrequests for staff to be involved in parades and events,” shesays. “We have people who volunteer at schools, build housesfor Habitat for Humanity, and are invited to K Days,” she adds.

“Our big push is to be seen in the

community doing things. We have

people who volunteer at schools,

build houses for Habitat for Hu-

manity... This all helps to build a

better understanding and support

for who we are and what we do.”

“I respect the institution and the

standards and you know what

is expected of you.”


page 20 >

rm


“This all helps to build a better understanding andsupport for who we are and what we do.”

It also helps to dispel some of the popular mis-conceptions about the armed forces. “I am con-stantly surprised about how little people knowabout the variety of work we are involved in out-side of the theatre of war,” she says.

As examples Van Diepen cites the ice storm inQuébec in 1998 where thousands of troops weredeployed to help and the Manitoba Floods in1997. She herself spent a couple of weeks as me-dia liaison during the 1998 Silvercreek fires inBritish Columbia where the army was called onto help.

In 1998,Van Diepen decided to add anotheritem to her bag of qualifications by enroling inthe MBA program. It was by her description a“personal challenge” that took three and a halfyears of part-time study to complete.

Colonel David Burke, also a U of A MBA graduate (seeprofile on page 10), played a role in convincing Van Diepento pursue her MBA.“It was the best time of my life,” she says.“There is something about sitting in the middle of a wholebunch of really smart people that is so inspiring,” she adds.Van Diepen admits that further study is never far from hermind and is currently in the Local Government Management

Certificate program atthe University of Al-berta and is contem-plating a PhD.

Major Brian MacGillivray (’01 MBA) is about asMajor Brian MacGillivray (’01 MBA) is about asenthusiastic about his career in the Canadianenthusiastic about his career in the CanadianArmed Forces as one could possibly imagine. Armed Forces as one could possibly imagine.

A t 36-years old, he has spent half his life doing hispart for the country and would not change this foranything in the world. “I am having a great time

and I love what I am doing,” he says enthusiastically. “I can’timagine doing anything else and get a real kick out of it,”he adds.

MacGillivray works for the 1 Area Support Group basedin Edmonton where he is Chief Operating Officer of theorganization. On behalf of his commander, Colonel Paul Wyn-nyk (see profile on page 16), he is responsible for the co-ordination and control of logistical, engineering, commu-nications, and other vital support requirements for the 1 ASG.

His training is as a mechanical engineer although his ca-reer path to date has taken him to places and into roles thathe says have “saturated my professional goals.”As a young man

“We are a small force but are

comprised of well-respected

and credible soldiers. We have

a good name.”

page 22 >

M A J O R B R I A N M A C G I L L I V R AY

2020 u of a business u of a business �� fall/winterfall/winter 2004-20052004-2005“You bring with y


growing up in Cape Breton, MacGillivray was encouraged tojoin the armed forces by his then neighbour who just hap-pened to be the provincial Minister for Education. “I joinedthe army the week after I graduated from high school,” hesays. “I really wanted to do my part for my country,” he adds.

His work with the 1 ASG is another step in a militarycareer that has taken MacGillivray around Canada and tointernational hot spots like Somalia and Kosovo.

“The kind of work we are involved in has changed andgrown dramatically since the end of the Cold War,” he says.“The paradigm of operations has changed and our operationalscope is so much more diverse with now an added empha-sis to peace support operations and humanitarian assistance.”

“The asymmetrical nature of the threats facing nations andpeople means that that en-emy can be everywhere,” headds.

MacGillivray is referringto the peacetime supportrole that Canadian soldiershave become well knownfor internationally in recenttimes. “We are a small forcebut are comprised of well-respected and credible sol-diers,” he says.

His own experience inSomalia in 1993 providedhim a first hand experienceof the tremendous difficul-ties facing agencies like theUnited Nations to get hu-manitarian aid to people inconflict-affected countries.“I had no understandingwhatsoever about where Iwas going and the situationthere,” MacGillivray says.

Two and a half months inthe war-torn country lo-

cated strategically on the Horn of East Africa left a lasting im-pression on the young MacGillivray. “Supporting the deliv-ery of humanitarian aid meant we brought with us a senseof hope,” he says.As a young Canadian soldier on his first tour,Somalia was a real eye opener.

Until the arrival of the UN, much of the foreign aid de-livered to this country was being taken by the warlordsrunning the country leaving the population to starve.The US-led UN mission entered Somalia in 1992 to support thesafe delivery of humanitarian aid to a country decimatedby war and famine. MacGillivray’s role was to work on pro-jects that provided protection to the convoys of trucks de-livering humanitarian aid to the starving masses in the coun-tryside.

Somalia had been a pawn in the Cold War and supportedfinancially by the USA while neighbouring Ethiopia receivedmoney and arms from the former Soviet Union. Its strate-gic location along the shipping routes out of the oil-rich Per-sian Gulf meant there was a keen interest in the area, but

“Supporting the delivery of

humanitarian aid meant we

brought with us a sense of hope.”

h you a sense of hope.”u of a business � fall/winter 2004-2005 21

page 23 >



The University of Alberta School of Business publicly

launched its fundraising campaign Building on Our Strengths:

Investing in Our People December 1 in Edmonton and on

December 2 in Calgary, announcing an overall target of

$20 million. Now, halfway through the campaign, the School

has already raised $11 million in donations from its many

shareholders.

The School’s campaign is closely integrated with the University’s

campaign and dollars raised count towards the University’s

overall goal of $310 million. In 2008, the University of

Alberta will celebrate 100 years of service. In 2006, the

Commerce program will be 90 years old. We have a long

tradition of educating the leaders of tomorrow and responding

to the evolving needs of our shareholders. We hope that you,

our alumni, will join us in keeping this momentum going. �

“To meet our goal, in the face ofintense and growing competitionfor top-quality researchers, teachersand students, the School’s cam-paign will deliver a legacy – a solid,stable funding base that will help usto achieve and maintain a criticalmass such that it will render our efforts bulletproof. As Dean, I can honestly say that without our alumni the School would not be where it is today. Nor would it enjoy the competitive advantages it does were it not for the foresightand generosity of our alumni.”

Mike Percy, Dean Stanley A Milner Professor

“The School’s aspirations mirrorthose of the University and itslarger vision: to be universally recognized in teaching, research,and community service. We areproud of our future alumni – our 2,200 current students.With your help, we will enrich and expand the experience theseyoung men and women will encounter on campus, in competitions and in exchange programs.”

Stanley A MilnerHonourary Campaign Chair

“This campaign is about renewal:about investing not in bricks andmortar but in people. Just as business reinvests its profits, withyour help, so must this School.Our “profits” are our alumni, our students, and our faculty.Reinvesting in them will allow us to strengthen our balance sheet.”

Hugh Bolton Campaign Chair

Alumni Support:

The MacLean Family – Bob (’75BCom) and wife Maryanne (’75 BEd)along with son Ryan (’00 BCom)and daughter Michelle (’02 BCom)have committed to a very generouslong-term partnership benefitingthe School and launching what wehope will be a very successfulalumni campaign.

Corporate Support:

“We believe that if Canada is tocompete with other countries fortalent, investment,and economicgrowth, we simply must invest in intellectual capital and provide anenvironment for business to prosper.”

RBC Financial Group President and CEO Gordon Nixon, after announcing $1.5 million to theSchool for family enterprise initiatives on November 2

We will use the power of the dollars we raise to

Attract and retain faculty of exceptional quality

Attract and retain top-quality students

Strengthen our community linkages through the work of

our Centres and Institutes

Make ongoing investments in the technology needed to

deliver and sustain world-class research and teaching

School of Business Goes Public

Please turn to both our Campaign booklet facing this page andour Thank-you to Donors booklet inserted elsewhere in the magazine for additional information.


when the Soviet Union withdrew its resources so too did theUSA.

Involvement in Somalia ended disastrously for both Cana-dian and American troops.The now infamous ‘Black HawkDown’ incident forced the Americans out of the country andthe Somalia incident in which Canadian soldiers were chargedwith torturing local people caught breaking into one of theirstorerooms spelled the end of their involvement.

He said travel into the countryside provided some of themost vivid memories: scores of children appearing frombehind the scrubby bushes and marveling at the taste ofcold water for the first time.

As a father of two young children now, MacGillivray saysit would be hard for him to go to a place like Somalia now.“We have so much to be thankful for here in Canada and some-times it takes a trip to a place like Somalia or the formerYugoslavia to make you realise this,” he says.

MacGillivray eventually enrolled in a part-time MBA in1997 and, although he took a little longer than most, therewere a number of extraordinary reasons for this. “It took mefour and a half or five years to finish my MBA part time,”he says. No sooner had MacGillivray been accepted intothe program when he was called to help with the Manitobafloods of 1997 that drowned huge swaths of land in and aroundWinnipeg. In 1998, his studies were interrupted by the Ice

“We have a great life here and

when I read about all the things

people complain about I think

those people should go to a place

like Somalia to see what they

should be thankful for.”

“I love what I am doing.”“I love what I am doing.”

Storm in Quebec and in 1999 a posting to Kosovo tookhim away for eight months.

“The professors at the University of Alberta School of Busi-ness were great about this,” he says. “People like Dr Jobsonand Dr Rasmussen would say ‘that you are off to serve ourcountry’ and, as such, were very accommodating to all of us,”he says. “I think the people at the school are incredibly sup-portive of the military.”

Of his time in Kosovo, where MacGillivray was respon-sible for coordinating the tactical-level provision of logis-tics and movement of 1300 troops, he also has very strongmemories. “We were all apprehensive since we expectedNATO to utilize the United Nations Section 6 powers to en-force the security in Kosovo ,” he says. “But you are seen asthe liberators and you bring with you a sense of hope tothe people.”

MacGillivray says his frequent absences from class also re-quired a high level of trust in him by the faculty especially fordelayed exams and assignments. “They knew where I was,sleeping in a hole somewhere without power so it was un-likely I would be able to cheat,” he laughs. He finally com-pleted his MBA in 2001 and was hoping for a holiday with hiswife Heather who is a nurse at the U of A hospital, but theirdaughter Siobhan had different plans.

She was born the day after he finished his last exam. “Somuch for a break and, of course, a very big change in fo-cus,” he says.

MacGillivray is on the move again from Edmonton, thistime to Central Canada although there had been prospectsfor an adventure in the Pacific until quite recently.

“We were supposed to be going to New Zealand, but nowwe are off to Ottawa.”




Sitting back in his office with a morning cup of cof-fee and reflecting on the challenges before himand the road behind, his unconventional climb upthe corporate ladder seems a natural fit for an in-

dustry leader facing so much change. From helping tosave the neighborhood of North Garneau from the wreck-ing ball as a student to taking on assignments in seem-ingly dead-end departments that other young managerschose to whistle past, Soper has proven himself a change

agent who doesn’t shyaway from a challenge.

“Taking risks has alwaysbeen a defining character-istic in my career and it in-evitably worked out,” hesays. “It reinvigorated meand gave me opportunitiesI wouldn’t otherwise havehad.”

Soper’s time at the U ofA was a colourful begin-ning to his career. After afreshman year of literallyleading the party on Hen-day Hall’s most rambunc-tious floor, he went on tobecome President of the

Perched a top Toronto’s Don Valleyand overlooking much of the city’s central landscape,Phil Soper’s (‘84 BCom) sweeping, corner office view

is pretty much what you’d expect for the Presidentand CEO of Royal LePage.Across the valley and down

into the city’s core is much of the area where AlbertE. LePage would have revolutionized the industry 90

years ago by simply driving clients to and fromprospective homes and listing properties in the local

newspapers.Trying to sell some of that same land andmuch, much more in the 21st Century, Soper has

spent the last two years leading the company’s armyof 10,700 realtors into a vastly different real estate

landscape where clients are looking for a lot morethan just a lift.

Meet two high achieverswho enjoy making theirmark in the burgeoningreal estate market.

The many

Phil Soper in Torontoby a l a n f i n d l a y



Students’ Union at a timewhen the bloated organi-zation was deeply in debtand badly in need of anoverhaul.Winning a hard-fought election campaignwith a slate of fiscally-minded, political underdogs,Soper and his SU executive took what was re-putedly the largest student-run business in NorthAmerica (including a bowling alley, curling rink,and more than 200 unionized employees) and rad-ically reformed it into a core set of affordablestudent services.

“It was a fascinating time,” he recalls. “You makea ton of mistakes. I learned how critical it was tofocus on the problem you’re trying to solve andnot to let it get personal.”

Inside the classroom, he best remembers theprofessors whose lectures taught outside the text-book and instilled in him the importance of main-taining a good rapport with employees.

“Some business leaders maintain you have to bedistant,” Soper says. “I’ve always maintained ifyou show them your human side you can developa level of trust.They can trust in you and you cantrust in them.”

He began his career on a much different trackfrom real estate, working with IBM in the mid ‘80sas a systems engineer. It was the ideal job with theperfect company for someone who loved all thingstechnical.

“I was always fascinated with computers.WhenI was in high school, I used to order computer partsfrom the back of comic books and wire them together to make them work.”

It wasn’t until Soper took part in a companyprogram that arranged lunches between employ-ees and senior executives that his career path sud-denly veered from the technical route to business.

“We left the meeting and the VP went to mymanager and said, ‘This guy’s not an engineer, heshould be in sales.’”

Soper quickly found himself in the ultra-com-petitive market of the late ‘80s, working on whathe describes as an IBM SWAT team that would helpdifferent branches of the company win major deals.The pressure was high and expectations were evengreater, he remembers.

“There was this incredibly passionate desire towin at all costs during those days.We treated ev-

ndariesy Faces of

Real Estate

“Taking risks has“Taking risks hasalways been aalways been adefining charac-defining charac-teristic in my teristic in my career and it career and it inevitablyinevitablyworked out.”worked out.”

page 26 page 26 >>

getty im

ages



ery single deal we did as if the fate of the entire company de-pended on it. I don’t think there was a better training groundin the world.”

He later witnessed first hand the difficult choices a cor-porate leader must make as new competitors emerged in the

world of personal computers and the Internet to challenge IBM’s dominance. Com-pany-owned country clubs were closed and fringe benefits slashed as Bill Ether-ington (now chairman of the CIBC) rightly predicted the difficult times ahead.

“What I learned during that time was that a business leader has to do what it takesand make unpopular decisions when you know it’s the right thing to do.”

By the mid ‘90s, Soper took a risky assignment heading up what was viewedat the time as a “backwash area for rejects and people who couldn’t get alongwith others” — IBM’s nascent IT professional services business.

Soper and company set up networking partnerships with emerging players suchas Cisco and Nortel and soon saw double-digit revenue growth for their ser-vices division at a time when IBM’s traditional hardware business was strug-gling. Over the next few years, his business grew to over $200 million in annual sales and created hundreds of jobs.

In 2000, Brascan Corporation came knocking with a new challenge: to integrateand manage two newly-acquired companies into their Royal LePage business.The risk of leaving a promising career with IBM looked prophetic when the techindustry suffered its devastating collapse three months later.

“It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Never underes-timate the role of luck in career planning,” he says with a smile.

Over at Royal LePage, Soper began making wholesale management changes, toss-ing out old systems and processes for others he had learned from his IT days.

“We have grown like stink both because the market has been so good and be-cause we’ve been able to execute on some solid strategies,” he said.

Soper’s impressive results landed him in the President’s seat two years later andthe title of CEO earlier this year.

He quickly set to work, taking the company public (TSX:RSF.un), and putting together an eclectic team with back-grounds ranging from real estate to online book sales.Theybegan the daunting task of training the company’s entiresales fleet of over 9,000 brokers and agents to hone inon the niche markets of 21st Century real estate. He saidhis days in IT impressed upon him how important it wasto hold people’s hand through major change if it was go-ing to stick and not simply ignored in favour of old habits.

A team of adult educators travel across the countryto train the company’s agents how to capitalize on tech-nology and recognize the unique needs of clients such as the growing numberof single women buying homes and the incredibly sensitive issues surroundingthe huge market of divorcing couples looking to turn one home into two.

And as the burgeoning real estate market continues to grow by the month, Soperis determined to keep his company in step with the evolving demands of itsclientele.

“What we see now is that consumers are much more educated on what’s avail-able. They tend to make their decisions quicker, they possibly look at fewerproperties so real estate companies like ours have to adapt.”

“What we see now“What we see nowis that consumersis that consumersare much moreare much moreeducated oneducated onwhat’s available.what’s available.They tend to They tend to make their deci-make their deci-sions quicker.”sions quicker.”

“In commercialreal estate, you getthe opportunity to meet and dobusiness with theelite of the busi-ness community.This provides for a great learningenvironment and wonderfulfriendships.”

Phil Soper

• ’84 BCom• Students’ Union

President• IBM SWAT Team• TSX: RSF.un• Provides leadership

to 10,700 RoyalLePage realtors

getty im

ages


After a few years, he waspromoted to negotiator wherehe specialized in the suburbanoffice market. His first majorclients were Standard Life As-surance and Canadian UrbanEquities. Seven years later, hewas promoted to Partner and,a year later, he was named Managing Partner.

One of his favorite duties asManaging Partner is helping tomentor new negotiators andnew assistants. He advises stu-dents contemplating a careerin commercial real estate to getinvolved at school and get toknow people.

“It’s very important to de-velop your sphere of friendsat an early age” he says, adding“that it’s equally important tokeep an open mind, work hard, and be prepared to make sac-rifices early on to get where you want to be down the road.”

New assistants at Avison Young earn approximately $30,000a year, all base salary. In their second year, they can either increase their salary or take less pay and share commissionswith a senior negotiator.

Throndson believes the life of a salesperson is greatly mis-understood by students graduating from university. From hisperspective, the life and opportunities that come from alife in sales cannot be underestimated. “Everyone has to sellwhether they are an accountant, lawyer, stock trader, orrealtor,” he says. “They have to bring in business to be suc-cessful. In commercial real estate, you get the opportunityto meet and do business with the elite of the business com-munity.This provides for a great learning environment andwonderful friendships.The golf in the summer is an excel-lent benefit as well.”

Throndson is blessed with a wonderful wife and two boys.He met his wife Kim at business school at the Universityof Alberta in 1987. Kim is a fellow Business graduate (2000)who also has a law degree (2003).Their children Alex, whois seven, and Jacob, who is five, are both keen students of busi-ness.The Throndson family’s passions are golf, skiing and com-puters (the children’s passion).

“Everyone has to sellwhether they are an accountant, lawyer,stock trader, or realtor.”

For someone who entered the job market in the late 1980s,Todd Throndson, ’87 BCom,

has followed an unusual career path: he’s always worked for the same company.

Shortly after graduating,Throndson was hired to workat the commercial real estate firm of Graeme Youngand Associates, which was started in Edmonton in1978. In 1996, the company merged with Melton Real

Estate in Calgary to form a larger Graeme Young and Asso-ciates in that city. A year later, Graeme Young merged withAvison Inc. in Toronto and Vancouver.

Throndson is now the Managing Partner of the Edmontonoffice of Avison Young. He says he’ll stay with the companyfor the rest of his working days.

“I’m very loyal and I’ve always had the opinion the grass isnot always greener on the other side of the fence,” he says. “Ifyou love what you’re doing and enjoy and respect the people you’re with, there’s no real reason to change.”

Avison Young has more than 120 brokers working fromVancouver to Québec.The Edmonton office has 17 brokersand eight assistants on its 33-person staff.As Managing Part-ner, a position he has held for seven years,Throndson man-ages and provides leadership to the local office. He is also ac-tive in the brokerage side of the business where he providesprofessional advice to his clients who typically lease officespace or own office buildings.

Throndson’s role allows him to get a strong sense of thebusiness climate in Edmonton. Industries that have done par-ticularly well during the past 15 years include construc-tion, education and, lately, commercial and residential realestate.

The economic climate wasn’t as promising when Thrond-son graduated from the U of A. “It was a difficult economyfor business students trying to get jobs,” he says.

Throndson learned about an opening at Graeme Youngthrough a friend there. He started as an assistant to the man-

aging partner and one of thefounding partners. He did tours,cold calls, financial summaries andreports and also prepared mar-keting pieces and completed doc-umentation for listings.


“I'm very loyal andI've always had theopinion the grass isnot always greener on the other side of the fence.”

Todd Throndson in Edmontonby d e b by wa l d m a n


Business Alumni Associationnnewswsbranch contact list

keep in touch

Calgary: Jon Wrathall, ’00 BCom

e-mail: [email protected]

Fort McMurray:Marcella Dankow, ’94 BCom


Hong Kong: Catherine Kwan, ’98 BCom


Los Angeles: Lorne Fierbach, ’96 MBA


Montréal: James Hanna, ’93 BCom


Ottawa: Lee Close, ’85 BCom


San Francisco: Dyan Triffo, ’88 BCom


Toronto: Paul Joliat, ’02 MBA


Vancouver: Derek Bennett, ’68 BCom


Victoria: Brenda Yanchuk, ’89 MBA


Formed in 1988, the University of Alberta Business Alumni Association

represents 18,000 BCom, MBA and PhD graduates of the University of Al-

berta School of Business with branches across Canada and around the world.

Please take a moment to update Please take a moment to update

your current contact information your current contact information

and send a class note for a future and send a class note for a future

issue of Business. Go to page 37 orissue of Business. Go to page 37 or

www.bus.ualberta.ca/alumni/.www.bus.ualberta.ca/alumni/.


recent events>>> For more event photos visit

www.bus.ualberta.ca/alumni/events.htm

Annual Dinner

On October 14th, the BusinessAlumni Association held it’s 16thAnnual Dinner with guest speak-

ers Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Dr. RayMuzyka, Joint CEOs, BioWare Corp. andCo-Chairmen, CodeBaby Corp. Businessalumni and their guests were enter-tained with the stories behind thesetwo unique, Edmonton-based technol-ogy companies that have experiencedgreat success in their short histories.

Top, L to R: Corinne Warwaruk, ChrisPilger, Dwayne Stang, Adam Cook

Bottom, L to R: Barry James, JaniceRennie, Kirk Mahon, Glenn McEown

Right: L to R: Mike Percy, HarveyLawton, Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk

Spruce Meadows Show Jumping Event, June 10, CalgaryLeft: L to R: Robin Harvie, Helen Jull, Ron Winkelaar, Sue Stanford. Right: L to R: Tammy Sky, Alfred Sorensen and Ilene Schmaltz


Business Alumni Association


Onware and Upward!

This is not a typo.“Onware”is a newWeb-based application that will allow the School to take online

registrations for some of the many eventsthat it hosts. This simple and secure ap-plication will allow users to sign up andpay for certain events on the Web andrepresents a significant improvement inthe services we are able to offer as a Schoolto our constituents.For more informationon this application, contact External Re-lations at [email protected].

MBA Liaison

An MBA alumni networking eventwas held at Characters Restaurantin Edmonton on September 21,

bringing more than 90 alumni and cur-rent students together for an evening ofmingling, catching up with old friends,and making new connections.The MBAAlumni Liaison Committee and the BAAwould like to thank the event sponsors– Characters Restaurant, Deloitte andTouche, and West Edmonton Mall.

Similar events targeted at MBA alumniwill be held every few months - the nextone is planned for February 2005. If youwould like to attend in the future and didnot receive notice of the inaugural event,please contact either of the committee co-chairs: Barton Goth ([email protected]) orRuss Farmer ([email protected]).

Other EventsOctober 12 • MBA/Alumni Receptionand Mentorship Launch

October 14 • 16th Annual BusinessAlumni Association Dinner

November 10 • U of A Alumni Reception – Edinburgh, Scotland, with Dean Mike Percy

November 13 • U of A Alumni Reception, London, England, with Dean Mike Percy

November 13 • Dallas Business AlumniLunch with Professor Joseph Doucet

November 15 • New York BusinessAlumni Lunch with Net Impact MBA students

Reunion DaysSeptember 30 – October 3, 2004

Class of ’49 Dinner, October 1Members of the Class of ‘49 and their guests held a special dinner to celebrate their 55th Anniversary.L to R - top row: Keith Fowler, Ben Shikaze,Gord Coulson, Bob SeatonBottom row: Bill Vanner, Doreen Lougheed,Marg Sutherland, Illa Skeith, Don Hall

karin

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Class of 54 DinnerMembers of the Class of ’54 and theirguests joined Dean Mike Percy for adinner to celebrate the 50th Anniver-sary of their graduation from the University of Alberta.

Top row, L to R: Bill Tye, Don Fraser, Dick McKinnon, Don Cross, Debby Carlson, Bill Stevens, June Stevens, Mike Percy.Seated, L to R: Lorraine McKinnon, Margot Wood, Bill Ferris

karin

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Members of the Class of ’59L to R: Al Cromb, Robert Johnstone, Eva Gelmici, John Buchan, John Krall

karin

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BAA Golf Tournament, September 13L to R: Doug Alloway, Terry Harris,Glenn Mitchell, Ed Davies

Convocation Breakfast, June 9Business graduates and their families celebrate at the 2004 Convocation Breakfast


B y C h e l s e a B a ro np r e s i d e n t , b u s i n e s s s t u d e n t s ’

a s s o c i at i o n , 2 0 0 4 - 2 0 0 5

The Business Students’ Association (BSA)

started things off in early September with

its annual Frosh Week activities: Cohort

Olympics, to stir up some friendly cohort

rivalry, Dean’s BBQ United Way fundraiser,

and a Business Clubs Fair.

We also launched a new event tohelp students develop a fundamental skillfor success in business: the CGA GolfSeries.This event combined a series oflessons with a corporate and student golftournament in early October and re-ceived very positive feedback. Our Sec-ond Annual Oktoberfest Beer Gardenswas also successful, and, thanks to ourawesome planning committee and vol-unteers, had significant improvementsafter its inaugural year.

In the midst of the accounting re-cruitment rush and the new co-op stu-dent seminars (not to mention classes),students made time to compete in thelocal round of the Inter Collegiate Busi-ness Case Competition.Thirteen strongteams competed in the seven categoriesand the U of A will be well representedat the national level of this Queens com-petition.The School of Business alsosent a team of students to the DalhousieBusiness Ethics Case Competition inNovember and representatives on theCanadian team at the Commerce Games

(Jeux de Commerce) in January. Goodluck!

The Business clubs have been addingto the dynamic student life in Business.The University of Alberta MarketingAssociation (UAMA) again held its pop-ular Grafitti Pub Crawl and is work-ing on an internal Marketing case com-petition. October saw Network forSuccess, the first installment of the Suc-cess Series, which is a collaborativeevent started last year by the Cooper-ative Education Students’ Association(CESA), the University of Alberta Hu-man Resource Management Association(UAHRMA), and the BSA. Each clubhosts a seminar focusing on professionaldevelopment. CESA has also launcheda very successful mentorship programthat partners new co-op students withveteran students in the program.TheManagement Information System Club(MISC) held a networking event withalumni in the discipline, and AIESECmembers just returned from a regionalconference the proud winners of the“Spirit Keg.” There is more to comefrom these and other Business clubs inthe next few months! Thank you spon-sors, guest speakers, and faculty for yoursupport!

BComBComnews


Back to Business

Clubs’ Fair

L to R: Clark Barr (BSA) and Chris Ziebart (RMBS)

Dean’s BBQ

Cohort Olympics

The fall semester has had a busy start with studentgroup activities, competi-

tions, conferences, and otherfun to welcome students

back to school.


by D e b by Wa l d m a n

Most School of Business students have to

wait until after graduation to move into

the fast lane. Mike Forest has been there

all along – literally.

Now 23 and in his last year at theSchool of Business, Forest has beenracing formula cars, also known as open-wheel cars, since he was 19. He was in-spired by his father Ric who finished sec-ond and third in the Formula AtlanticSeries Championships in the 1970s.

As did his father, Forest competes onroad courses as opposed to ovals.Thereare four levels and he is in the secondlevel racing for PR1, which is the topUS team.

During the season that just ended,he finished second overall in the cham-pionships, which is a competitive serieswhere the top seven or eight driversqualify within a half second. It was hisbest showing yet and he did it while tak-ing four classes.

“It’s worked out prettywell, but it’s certainly notthe easiest way to live alife,” he said during a re-cent phone conversationfrom California where hehad another race. “You’vegot to be well organized.”

Forest usually studies onplane rides because, oncehe’s in the race environ-ment, he has no time forschoolwork.When the Fall‘04 semester ends, he willhave one class remaining:an individual project based

BComBComnews


In the Fast Laneprofi

le

on Finance 418. He’ll take it by cor-respondence and it’s the first class he’shad to do long distance.

Understanding professors and a solidwork ethic have helped Forest succeedin his studies. His one regret is that he’sbeen too busy to participate in the co-op program.

“My friends at University have spo-ken highly of it,” he says. “It would havebeen a good introduction to variousfields in business.”

Racing itself is a business and an ex-pensive one. PR1 transports Forest’s carto the 50-plus days of testing and rac-ing and provides the engineering, setup,preparation and maintenance, but hepays for the privilege, which adds up toroughly US$125,000 a season. Once heprogresses to the next level, the costwill jump to between US$300,000 and $600,000.

To cover the costs, Forest has had tolook for sponsors.This year, he’s re-ceived support from dieselpusher.com,the marketing arm of Motorcoach Westand Western RV Coach, which main-tain offices in Edmonton,Vancouver,and Indio, California.

“We’re in talks for next season witha few other companies,” he says. “It’s al-ways a difficult battle to get enoughmoney to keep running – the moneybecomes as much a part of it as the driv-ing.That makes it a unique element thatseparates it from other sports.”

On the plus side, Forest is honing hisbusiness skills. “There’s a lot of lessonsyou can learn given the number of newpeople you meet and, once you startgetting into the sponsorship side, you’reable to work with a business to find outhow the relationship can work and howto create value for both sides.When I’mable to get on the podium, they’re aboutto get television exposure.When we dotrack days, the sponsor’s staff or clientstake away some valuable skills.”

Forest has always been interested inbusiness. His grandfather left Poole Con-struction in 1952 to start the family con-struction firm, Forest Construction,which his father bought in the mid-70s.In 1998, his father sold the company toPCL. Ric currently oversees the BC andNorthern Alberta operations.

A Finance major, Forest has alwaysbeen good with numbers and plans ona lifelong career in business. For thenext few years though, racing will oc-cupy most of his time.

“My goal is to be the best driver I canbe,” he says. “It’s entirely within mygrasp to make the Mazda and Toyota-Atlantic series and I’d like to take a shotat Champ Car.That’s a five-year planand, following that, there are plenty ofopportunities within the world of busi-ness based on the tight relationship be-tween the two.”

“Once you start get-

ting into the spon-

sorship side, you’re

able to work with a

business to find out

how the relationship

can work and how to

create value for both

sides.”


by D e b by Wa l d m a n

Early in her second year at the U of A,

Jaimie Kidston, ‘04 BCom, took time off

to compete in an international horse

show, the Chase Creek CCI Two-Star Three-

Day Event in Chase, BC.

It was her first show at that level,she placed sixth overall and third in theYoung Riders Division, which made herfeel great.

The enthusiasm didn’t last long. Onher limited budget, Kidston couldn’t af-ford to keep her beloved thoroughbred,Out of the Blue, in Edmonton. She senthim back to her parents’ farm in 100Mile House, BC.

“My marks went way up and so didmy depression,” she recalls. “I really did-n’t like it – he was gone from Octo-ber to April. Except for the time I livedin the Caribbean with my parents whenI was nine, that was the longest I’d beenhorseless.”

For her third and fourth year, Kid-ston made a change: she took out a stu-dent loan, borrowed money from herparents, and boarded Out of the Bluewith a woman named Cyndie Adams, afriend of her mother’s in Stony Plain.In exchange for a reduced rate, Kidstondid chores and looked after the other

horses when Adams and her family wereout of town.

Balancing riding with a major in in-ternational relations was a challenge,but, with the help of understanding pro-fessors and hard work, Kidston man-aged to make it work.

Based on her high school marks, she’dwon a President’s Citation for her firstyear. By maintaining good grades, theaward was renewed every year. She wasalso awarded a Business Alumni Asso-ciation Undergraduate Scholarship inBusiness and the William S. ZieglerScholarship in Business. In her fourthyear, she won a School of Business In-volvement Award honouring her vol-unteer efforts at the U of A.

As a result of her hard work and withthe help of her coach,Therese Washtockof Summerland, BC, Kidston alsoearned a spot on the Canadian TalentSquad, which is two levels below theOlympic Team. She was also awardedfunding from the Canadian Athlete De-velopment Fund, which she used totravel to California last fall for herbiggest international competition.

In a field of 28 horses and riders, Kid-ston and Blue finished a respectable12th, which is impressive for a team thathad been competing at that level for onlythree months and had been able to par-ticipate in the bare minimum of qual-ifying competitions.

Kidston would love to continue withcompetitive riding and someday makeit to the Olympics, but she’s realistic.In addition to an extraordinary amountof work required at the elite level, “rid-ing is a hard-luck sport,” she says. “A lotof it is timing, whether you have theright horse at the right time. The

BComBComnews


Riding for a Dreamprofi

le

Jaimie Kidston and Out of the Blue, Pritchard, British Columbia, August 2003

Kidston would love to continue with competitiveriding and someday make

it to the Olympics.

dixo

n zalit ph

oto

graph

y


by C h a d E l l i o t tP r e s i d e n t , M B A A , 2 0 0 4 - 2 0 0 5

The summer of 2004 was filled with many

opportunities for MBA students.

Thirty-eight students enroled inthe Business 601 internship andwere placed in dynamic Alberta orga-nizations in areas such as TechnologyCommercialization/Hi-Tech, Govern-ment, Finance, Consulting, Sports andEntertainment, Natural Resources, andLaw.The ‘hands-on learning’ providedby internships is a valuable part of theMBA Program. Academic offerings intopical areas such as finance, account-ing, marketing, management science,and organizational analysis provided stu-dents with ‘in-the-classroom’ learning.Phuong Ngo, MBAA International Rep,organized a weekly “MBA Healthy Liv-ing Night,” where students participatedin physical activities such as ultimatefrisbee, soccer, and football.The BAAConvocation Breakfast on June 9th wasa success and well attended by gradu-ating MBA Students.

The MBAA executive team met reg-ularly over the summer to prepare forthe upcoming year. During these meet-ings, an MBAA mission was created:“To

enhance the MBA student experienceat the University of Alberta.”We willachieve this mission through our six op-erational goals and use it to guide us dur-ing the year. Good governance, trans-parency, accountability, and strongcommunication are guiding principlesfor this year’s MBAA team. In coop-eration with the MBA programs office,Stephen Hanus, MBAA VP Internal, andthe orientation organizing committeekicked off the year with one of the mostsuccessful MBA student orientations todate. Orientation consisted of academicprimers, computer workshops, team-building activities, and social events.Among the many new initiatives of thisyear’s orientation was a family day BBQ.Families are an important componentto an MBA student’s success and wewanted to offer an opportunity for fam-ilies to get involved.We also collectedfeedback from participants during ori-entation to help with next year’s plan-ning efforts.

The MBAA executive team has beendiligently preparing the differential feebudget. Randy Yu, MBAA VP Finance,has been putting in many hours with ournew accounting software to ensure thatour past and current financial statementscomply with university approval.This

MBAnews


Enhancing the MBA Student Experience

Men’s Intramural Flag Football Team

MBA Orientation

Olympics are only every four years;whether the horse stays sound for thecrucial competition or result andwhether you have the finances are thingsyou can’t control.”

Chances are, Kidston won’t haveBlue in another four years. Now man-aging a farm in Maple Ridge, BC, andlooking for a job related to her degree,she plans to return to school in the nextfew years to study either internationalrelations or law. Neither are conduciveto keeping a horse so she’s put Blueon the market.

“I had a loan to pay,” she says. “TheBank of Mom and Dad said, ‘We gotyou this far…’That trip to Californiahad been a huge goal for me for yearsand years, and I was finally able to goand it was a wonderful thing. I never inmy heart of hearts knew if I’d be ableto make it and, when I did, I went forit and I knew it would be so muchmoney I would have to sell my horsethe next year.”

Kidston’s not in any hurry, however.“I’m not just going to sell him to the firstperson who comes and hands me acheque,” she says. “I want to make surehe’s going to a good home where some-one is going to love him and care for him.”

Sounding less like a School of Busi-ness grad and more like the horse crazykid she once was, she adds, “Sometimesprice isn’t the biggest factor.

Now managing a farm in Maple Ridge, BC, and looking for a job related

to her degree, Kidston plans to return to school in thenext few years to study

either international relations or law.

page 34 >


budget will be administered by theMBAA and will largely be used to fundour case competition teams. It will alsoprovide money for student initiativessuch as orientation, conferences, inter-national study tours, and other relatedMBA events.We plan to attend four casecompetitions this year including Con-cordia, MBA Games at Laval, Net Im-pact, and George Washington. TheMBAA and MBA Programs Office arecurrently creating eligibility require-ments and funding guidelines to helpsend the most qualified students to theseevents.Thomas Braun chaired the ThirdAnnual Gay and Ralph Young Case Com-petition Committee.

Already this fall, the MBAA has beenactively involved in making the programas cohesive and integrated as possible.New initiatives include MBAA-hostedtown hall meetings, communication bul-letin boards, and a new and improvedWebsite. Sean Kozicki, MBAA GSARep, has been leading the charge to getour new Website up and running to pro-vide better communication with cur-rent students, faculty, and alumni.

The Dean’s office and Cameron John,MBAA VP External, have already or-ganized seven excellent Dean’s Forums.Presentations have been delivered byRobert Mullins, Principal of Robert G.Mullins Investments; Larry Pollock,President and CEO of Canadian West-

ern Bank and Trust; Christopher Robb,Managing Director and Co-Founder ofTraction Capital Ltd.; Roberto Geremia,Senior VP of Finance and CFO of Board-walk Real Estate Investment Trust; Pe-ter Robinson, CEO, Mountain Equip-ment Co-op;Yvon Charest, Presidentand CEO, Industrial Alliance; and SheilaWeatherill, President and CEO, Capi-tal Health.The presenters have given in-sightful and valuable advice that is ap-preciated by those in attendance.Thereare many more outstanding businessleaders lined up for subsequent Dean’sForum presentations throughout theyear.

Thanks to Billy Chan, MBAA Sportsand Activity Coordinator, the MBA in-tramural sport participation has in-creased significantly to include outdoorsoccer, flag football, basketball, ballhockey, ice hockey, and two volleyballteams (and that’s only first semester),which 25 percent of our students areparticipating in. Billy also organized avery successful MBA golf tournamentand is currently planning an MBA skitrip for the new year. Jennifer Beck,MBAA Social and Volunteer Coordi-nator, has done a fabulous job of orga-nizing social events and is currently in-vestigating more student volunteeropportunities.

This academic year will be highlightedwith a January trip to the 2005 MBAGames at Laval University in QuébecCity, Québec.Thirty-five MBA studentsare off to bring the Queen’s Cup back

to its rightful home.We have had fourstraight years of finishing in the top threespots.A large sponsorship and fundrais-ing campaign is underway as the studentsseek to cover the enormous cost of thisactivity. Katie Spriggs and Trish Mor-rison, Co-chairs of the MBA Gamescommittee, have been doing a wonder-ful job organizing our team and are freshoff of an excellent Casino Night fundrais-ing effort.Thank you to all who havesupported our team. If you would liketo support our team, please contact usat the number/e-mail below.

The opportunities for MBA studentsare increasing every year and, this year,we are fortunate to be involved with moreindustry connections and opportunities.We would like to thank the BAA for pro-viding the MBA-BAA student/alumnimixer and the BAA reception where thementorship program was introduced.TheMBA students are very fortunate to beinvolved with this program and com-munity business leaders.The BAA dinnerwas also an excellent networking op-portunity for MBA students.

The year is off to a tremendous startand the momentum is building for thesuccesses experienced at the beginningof the year to carry on.The MBA Pro-gram at the University of Alberta Schoolof Business continues to encouragealumni to attend our events and be-come/stay involved with the MBA pro-gram.You can reach us at (780) 492-2854 or [email protected].

MBAnews


MBA Newcomers’ Social

Blue Lake Retreat

MBA News, continued…

Net Impact members Melanie Bowbell and Jolene Ali adopt Robin Williams as an honouraryalumnus on their recent trip to New York.


by Z a n n e C a m e ro n

Stephen Hanus, a second-year Natural

Resources and Energy (NR&E) MBA stu-

dent, has a background in biological sci-

ences. In the Summer of 2004, Hanus was

one of two NR&E students chosen to work

on a ground-breaking tripartite initia-

tive at the University of Alberta School of

Business.

The School of Business’ Centre forApplied Business Research in Energyand the Environment (CABREE) has en-tered into a two-year agreement withthe Henry P. Kendall Foundation and theParks Canada Agency (PCA).The pri-mary objectives of this initiative aretwofold. First, this initiative aims to im-prove the management of Canada’s na-tional parks in a focused and strategicmanner through the incorporation ofbetter management practices and anal-ysis. Second, the initiative strives to bi-laterally leverage opportunity and skillbetween the Agency and MBA students.In addition, this pilot program is ex-ploring a longer-term strategic alliancebetween the PCA and the School of Busi-ness.This has the potential to set thestage for a similar program with otherCanadian universities. It marked the firstyear the Kendall Foundation funded apartnership between a Canadian MBAprogram and a federal parks agency.

MBAnews


A Passion for Canada’s Wilderness

profi

le

Since 1997, Hanus has worked on var-ious ecological research, monitoring,and managing projects, which have takenhim to the most remote corners of Al-berta. Hanus has worked for the Gov-ernment of Alberta as a Wildlife Biol-ogist since 2001 and has been living inJasper with his wife Debbie since 2002.Having a strong background and un-derstanding of conservation issues spe-cific to Alberta meant the intern posi-tion was a natural fit. Applying newly-acquired analytical business skills to anorganization like PCA was “a dreamcome true” says Hanus. He brought tothe position a clear understanding of thechallenges associated with managing pro-tected areas and his own passion for con-servation.”

Hanus worked on two business strat-egy analysis projects, each of which wasdeveloped for PCA management teamsand facilitated strategic management di-rections. Each project was approachedusing multiple business perspectives to

aim for win-win solutions.This approachfacilitated a strong working relationshipwith PCA staff and resulted in value-added deliverables that were positivelyreceived. “Providing deliverables thatultimately improve the management offederal parks was highly rewarding andultimately fulfilled my personal goalof applying business fundamentals in thecontext of natural resources and pro-tected area management.”

Hanus worked with people from alllevels of the PCA organization includingsenior management such as the Directorof the Mountain Parks Superintendentsand Chief Park Wardens.“I certainly metall the right people and working withina Parks Canada management team wouldbe ideal upon graduation.” For someonewith a passion for Canada’s wilderness,this was an unbeatable opportunity.

Hanus has had few regrets in life. “Al-though living apart from my wife andthe great outdoors for much of theschool year is challenging, I have thor-oughly enjoyed the MBA experienceand have never regretted a moment. Ihave particularly enjoyed the incredibleculture of the MBA program – onebased on excellence, teamwork, cre-ativity, and excitement.”

This year Hanus is VP Internal for theMBA Association and was active in plan-ning Orientation week for incomingMBA students. Currently, he is work-ing closely with fellow MBA Associa-tion executives and the MBA ProgramsOffice to develop differential fees guide-lines to enhance participation in casecompetition, conferences and other stu-dent initiatives. Upon graduation, Hanuscertainly looks forward to the oppor-tunities that await.This would includemore time exploring the back coun-try. “Debby and I have enjoyed literallythousands of kilometers of back coun-try hiking and mountain biking.”

Stephen Hanus


classnotes’50’56 Richard Haskayne,BCom, of Calgary, Alberta, was re-cently appointed to the Board ofTrustees for the Alberta HeritageFoundation for Medical Research.

’60’64 Jerry Kwan, BCom, ofHong Kong, China, is the Execu-tive Vice President and CEO of anindependent business developmentin Hong Kong, China, and NorthAmerica. He is also the sole agentrepresentative for Canadian, US,and China environmental systemsand products and consumer goods(textile and furniture).

’65 Robert Ingram, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed to the Board of Direc-tors, EquiTech Corp.

’65 Robert Sanderman,BCom, of Denver, Colorado, sharedhis experiences about doing inter-national business with a group ofMBA students at the School ofBusiness on October 14, 2004.Mr. Sanderman is a member of theSchool’s Business Advisory Council.

’66 William Robertson,BCom, of Calgary, Alberta, was re-cently appointed to the Board ofDirectors for Endev Energy Inc.

’69 Virender (Vern) Krishna, MBA, of Ottawa, On-tario, was awarded an HonouraryDoctorate by the The Law Societyof Upper Canada along with twoother recipients. Each year, theLaw Society confers honourary de-grees upon select members of thepublic and the profession who havedemonstrated extraordinary charac-ter or who have performed goodworks of benefit to the public. Re-cipients serve as keynote speakersto inspire the graduating class asthey begin their new careers. Therecipients were selected because of

their service to the profession aseducators and legal scholars and forthe role they have played in ad-vancing the cause of justice. Pro-fessor Krishna, a former Law Soci-ety Treasurer, is a professor of lawat the University of Ottawa. He re-ceived his Bachelor of Commercefrom the University of Manchesterand his MBA and LLB from the Uni-versity of Alberta. He also receivedhis LLM from Harvard and his DCLfrom Cambridge University.

’70’70 Ted Zaharko, BCom, ofCalgary, Alberta, was recently

appointed chair of the Real EstateCouncil of Alberta.

’72 Bruce McCollum, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta, was re-cently appointed Vice President ofProperty Management and Devel-opment at the Lauring Group.

’73 Harold Kingston, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta,was recently elected aFellow of the Institute ofChartered Accountantsof Alberta.

’75 Jody Anne Hunt,BCom, of St. Albert, Alberta, wasrecently appointed as a PublicMember to Athabasca University’sGoverning Council.

’75 Allan Mah, BCom, of Ed-monton, Alberta, former Directorof the University of Alberta, Com-mercial Property Management andParking, retired in June 2004 after20 years in parking services andreal estate management. Allan hassince moved on to his next chal-lenge as a teacher of real estate

courses across North Amer-ica. Allan became synony-mous with a parking sys-tem that enforced itspolicies with sometimesmaddening efficiency. Al-though he never budged on

matters of safety, he always hadtime for anyone with a legitimatecomplaint and he always brought

The School of Business The School of Business regrets the passing of regrets the passing of these alumni and friends:these alumni and friends:

Josephine Gorcak, '33 BCom, of Consort, Alberta

J C Ken Madsen, '39 BCom, of Banff, Alberta

W Boyd McFetridge, '41 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

Dorothy Montgomery Bussard’45 BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta

Donald Grant Buchanan, ’48 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

Eldon D. Foote, ’48 LLB, ’96 Hon., of Norfolk Islands, Australia

Donald Gower, '48 BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta

J Grant Gunderson, '48 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

Edgar Pullman, '49 BCom, of Cochrane, Alberta

Richard McKenzie, '49 BCom, of Ottawa, Ontario

Vincent Krehel, '50 BCom, of Calgary , Alberta

William Miller, '51 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

F Reginald Peacock, '64 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

Walter Mayer, '71 BCom, of Calgary , Alberta

Gary Gauthier, '72 BCom, of Beaconsfield, Québec

Rick M Tanner, ’72 BCom, of Victoria, British Columbia

Irwin Hunte '74 BCom, of Calgary, Alberta

Tom Mayson, '78 BCom, of Calgary , Alberta

Laurier Landry, '79, of BCom, of Okotoks, Alberta

Martin Mentz, '81 BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta

in memoriam

1930/31 Evergreen and Gold Yearbook:“It requires no argument to convince University men and women that the friendshipsof college days are amongst the most precious in life. And yet, without an organiza-tion such as the Alumni Association, these friendships would, in most cases, becomebut memories following graduation day, not from lack of interest, but through lackof opportunity to keep in touch with old classmates. Such an opportunity is offeredin our alumni magazine. Each issue contains all available news so that it becomes impossible to forget entirely the friends of college days.”



u of a business � spring/summer 2003 37

classnotes

his personal touch to many specialfunctions. Allan has been active inthe campus community in a num-ber of different ways and onmany different committees, mostrecently as Chair of the APOCouncil and as a Director of theFaculty Club. He is also an activevolunteer with a number of citygroups and is a Director of theBusiness Alumni Association.

’76 Thomas Ip, BCom, of Ed-monton, Alberta, is proud to re-port that his son Jason graduatedfrom the University of Albertawith his computer engineering degree this June. His other sonwill be graduating in 2005.

’78 James Mahaffy, BCom, ’80 MBA, of Toronto, Ontario,was recently appointed ExecutiveVice President & Head of Corpo-rate and Institutional Banking for HSBC.

’78 David Robottom, MBA, of Calgary, Alberta, recently joinedthe Calgary office of Stikeman Elliott LLP as a partner.

’78 Robert Wilson, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed CEO of Kingston RossPasnak LLP.

’79 Ken Babich,BCom, of Brentwood Bay,British Columbia, holds aposition as Manager, Pur-chasing Services, at theUniversity of Victoria. Heis married to MichelleKoziol, a ’79 U of A Phar-macy grad. They have twochildren, Sharlene (19) andSarah (18), who are bothattending the University

of Alberta. Ken attended his 25-year reunion this fall.

’79 Robert Bietz, BCom, ofCalgary, Alberta, recently joinedMcLeod Scotia as an InvestmentExecutive.

’79 Colleen Collins, BCom,’93 PhD, of Burnaby, BritishColumbia, writes: “After School, I


The personal information requested on this form is collected under the authority of Section 33(c) of the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for the purpose of maintaining current contact information. Questions concerning the collection, use or disposal of this information should be directed to: Director, External Relations, University of Alberta, School of Business, 4-40 Business Building, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6, Phone:(780) 492-1581 • Fax:(780) 492-8748.

E-mail, fax or snail-mail this form to:

E-mail: [email protected]: www.bus.ualberta/ca/alumni/Fax: (780) 492-8748 Telephone: (780) 492-4083Toll-free in Canada & US: 1-877-362-3222

External Relations, School of BusinessUniversity of Alberta4-40 Business BuildingEdmonton, AB, T6G 2R6 Canada

Please send information on:

�� Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

�� Getting Involved with the Business Alumni Association

�� Alumni Chapters in my area

�� Contributing to Campaign

�� Making a Gift to the School in my will

�� Mentoring

�� Other (please indicate)___________________

> keepintouch <Graduate’s Name Year of Graduation & Degree(s)

Address Preference �� Home �� Business Are either of these new addresses? �� Yes �� No

Business Address Organization Title

Postal Code

Business Telephone Fax

Home Address

Postal Code Home Telephone

Preferred E-mail Address

Class Note (for a future issue of this magazine or to post on the alumni Web site):

News or Comments


38 u of a business � spring/summer 2003

classnotes


joined Premier Peter Lougheed’sOffice as his Research officer - itwas the best job in the world. Sowhen he retired, I did as well andwent back to the University of Alberta to get my PhD in market-ing. I married my late husband,Colin Dodd, in 1981 and we had ason who is now 15 years old. I’mteaching marketing at SimonFraser University and I love it.”

’79 Owen Edmondson, MBA,was recently appointed Senior VicePresident and Controller forATCO Gas and Utilities.

’79 Janice Rennie, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta, formerBusiness Advisory Councilmember, was recently ap-pointed Vice President, Human Re-sources and Organizational Effec-tiveness of EPCOR Utilities.

’79 David M Strong, BCom,CA, of Denver, Colorado, writes: “Ilived in San Diego from 1984 to1992. During that time, I held theposition of CFO and then CEO ofLondon Pacific Investment Group,a British-owned developer, in-vestor and manager of commercialreal estate in Southern Californiaand Edmonton. In 1994, I com-pleted my MBA at the AndersonSchool at UCLA. I have been hold-ing the position of Vice Presidentof Development of Wellsford RealProperties, Inc. since 1994. I’mmarried and have three children:Katherine (7), Libby (5) and Robert(3). We live in Denver and spendsummers at Ma-Me-O Beach.

’80’80 Barry James, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed to the Board of Direc-tors, Edmonton Space and ScienceFoundation. He is also a memberof the Alberta School of BusinessAdvisory Council.

’81 Janice Comeau, BCom, ofVancouver, British Columbia, was,recently appointed Chief Financial

Advisor of Napier EnvironmentalTechnologies.

’81 Walter Pavlic, BCom, ’85 LLB, of Edmonton, Alberta,was recently appointed Presidentof the Canadian Bar Association ofAlberta.

’81 Brian Vaasjo, MBA, of Edmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed to the Board of Direc-tors, United Way of Alberta, Capital Region.

’82 DawnRingrose, MBA, ofEdmonton, Alberta isthe principal of DawnRingrose and AssociatesInc. The company hasprovided management

consulting to the tourism and hos-pitality industry for 18 years spe-cializing in strategic planning, marketing and quality manage-ment. She is also the co-chair ofAlberta Attractions Inc., a com-pany that represents tourism attractions throughout Alberta.Attractions Inc. won the Travel Alberta Award for Innovating Mar-keting in 2002. The company wasalso the finalist for the 2003 Na-tional Awards for Tourism Excel-lence (Tourism Industry Associationof Canada) in the New Businesscategory. Dawn was named a Fel-low Certified Management Consul-tant with Distinction from the Institute of Certified ManagementConsultants of Alberta in 2003 andrecently completed her CertifiedExcellence Professional Designa-tion with the National Quality Institute.

’83 Linda Banister, BCom, ’87 MPM, of Edmonton, Alberta,was featured in the ProfessionalMarket Research Society (PMRS)newsletter and discussed a varietyof topics regarding the market re-search industry. The PMRS is thenational organization which repre-sents over 1700 research profes-sionals and educators. The Societyencourages the highest ethical andprofessional standards in the prac-

tice and use of marketing researchin Canada and all members of theSociety abide by the Rules of Con-duct and Good Practice. “The Alberta School of Business attractsan outstanding calibre of studentswho are constantly challenging mythoughts and perceptions of market research. The dialogue between the students and myselfis not only insightful but reener-gizes my love of the professionand encourages me to think cre-atively. Banister Research has alsobenefited greatly from havingmany students from the facultyjoin our firm in full-time, summer,or Co-op positions,” she says.Linda has recently been appointedto the Edmonton Oiler CommunityFoundation Board, which dis-tributes funds raised through theclub to various community-basedorganizations. In August 2004,Linda also received her CertifiedMarket Research Professional designation (CMRP), a new profes-sional designation held by only acouple of hundred market researchpractitioners in Canada.

’83 Peter J Kraus, BCom, ofCalgary, Alberta, was appointedVice-President, Finance, of Octane

Energy Services Ltd. in June 2004.Octane is an emerging, diversifiedoilfield services company. Thecompany provides services inthree main areas: facilities con-struction services, small diameterpipeline construction services, and electrical and instrumentationservices. Peter has a wealth of experience from the oil field service sector having held senioraccounting and finance positionsin a number of different compa-nies both private and public.Peter is a Certified ManagementAccountant (CMA).

’83 Brenda M Leong, BCom,of Vancouver, British Columbia,was appointed Executive Directorof the British Columbia SecuritiesCommission (BCSC). Brenda hasbeen with the BCSC for 12 years.Since 2001, she has been Directorof Legal and Market Initiatives. Inthat role, she is responsible for ad-vising the Commission on securi-ties regulatory matters, exercisingpowers under the Securities Act,and managing legal and regulatoryissues related to mergers and ac-quisitions. As Executive Director,she will be the chief operating officer of the Commission responsi-

Announcement

Our undergraduate students

heve been recognized with a

‘special event’ award for their

continued active support for

the United Way. This award

recognizes the efforts of the

Business Students’ Association,

Business 201, the Operations

Management Club, Manage-

ment Science 352, and all of

the many business students

who contributed to the United

Way last year and in previous

campaigns. Last year, under-

graduate business students

raised over $5,000 for United

Way through various activities

on campus. The award is signifi-

cant in that it indicates how

our students give back to the

community even before they

graduate. This ethic of commu-

nity service is an important tra-

dition at the Alberta School of

Business and, although we do

not seek recognition for these

efforts, I am very happy to see

our students acknowledged by

the external community this

way.

� from Dean Michael Percy:



classnotes


ble for overseeing the financial,administrative, and technical af-fairs of the Commission and direct-ing the activities of staff to effec-tively enforce the Securities Act.

’83 Stewart T MacPhail,BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, wasrecently appointed Vice President,Marketing and Business Develop-ment, of Parkland Income Fund.

’84 Scott Roszell, BCom, of Calgary, Alberta, was recentlyappointed Vice President, Controller for ATCO I-Tek.

’85 William Charnetski,BCom, of Toronto, Ontario wasappointed Vice President and General Counsel of AstraZenecaCanada Inc.

’85 Ian Glassford, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed Chief Financial Officer,Capital City Savings.

’85 Richard Higa, BCom, ofAjax, Ontario, was recently ap-pointed to McMillan Binch LLP.

’85 Mark E Jones, BCom, ofColleyville, Texas, writes: “After 14years, I have left Bain & Companyto become Chairman and CEO ofTexas Wasatch Group, a private investment firm that controls anInternet-based insurance companyheadquartered in Dallas, Texas.

’85 Douglas Strickland,BCom, of Annapolis, Maryland, recently joined the Certified Commercial Investment MemberInstitute (CCIM) as Director of

Business Development and Opera-tions. CCIM, an affiliate of the Na-tional Association of Realtors, isone of world’s largest networks ofcommercial real estate profession-als. Douglas has enjoyed residingin Annapolis since 1996.

’85 Cheryl Synnott, MPM, ofHopkinton, Massachusetts, writes:“At the end of January, we leftCanada again to return to the US.This time we are living in a beau-tiful little town just outside ofBoston called Hopkinton. It’s actually the starting point for theBoston Marathon.” Cheryl can bereached via email [email protected].

’86 Jeff Baker, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed partner with Pricewa-terhouseCoopers LLP.

’86 Brian Milne, BCom, of Orleans, Ontario, was recently appointed Vice President, Controller for ATCO Midstream.

’87 Imran Ally, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed to Board of Directors ofSolid Resources Inc.

’87 Tom Borowiecki, BCom,of Bothell, Washington, writes: “In2000, I came down to Seattle tohelp some other Albertans workon a project for Mi-crosoft. It was supposedto be a three- month as-signment. Well, fouryears later, I am still hereand now work for a ma-

jor Wireless Carrier in a ServiceManagement/Engineering capacityfor their Enterprise Customers.(Focusing on the Fortune 1000companies utilizing wireless dataservices). I got married in 2002and we just had a baby.

’87 Steven J Glover, MBA,FCA, of Edmonton, Alberta, wasrecently recognized for his ser-vices as Executive Director toICAA at a special fundraising din-ner on September 22, 2004. Morethan 400 colleagues and peersgathered at Calgary’s Hyatt Re-gency Hotel to mark the Silver Anniversary of the Institute ofChartered Accountants of Alberta(ICAA). Proceeds from the evening,in excess of $50,000, will benefitthe Chartered Accountants’ Educa-tion Foundation (CAEF) throughthe establishment of the SteveGlover FCA Fund for ThoughtLeadership. The fund is intendedto honour Steve’s significant 25-year contribution to the CA profession provincially, nationally, and internationally.Congratulations, Steve!

’87 Robert Roth, BCom, ’91 LLB, of St Albert, Alberta, recently became a member of theAthabasca University GoverningCouncil.

’89 Gabriel Lee, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, recentlyjoined Richardson Partners Financial

’89 Sean O’Neil, BCom, ofToronto, Ontario, recently joinedthe partnership of McCarthyTetrault.

’90’90 Joanne Anderson, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta, is now the

Director of Finance for theGreater Edmonton Founda-tion. Joanne previously helda position with Deloitte &Touche.

’90 Pat Kiernan, BCom, ofNew York, New York, was recentlyprofiled in the New York Times. Patleft CFRN in Edmonton eightyears ago to break into the USmarket. He eased on camera atNY1, New York City’s all-newschannel, to moderate a businesssegment before becoming themorning anchor. Shows like “GoodMorning America” and “Today”earned Mr. Kiernan the distinctionof being the only local televisionnewscaster on the Columbia Jour-nalism Review’s list of New York-ers who shape the nation’s cover-age of the media. Pat has recentlycrossed the border from morningnews to night time entertain-ment. He is the host of “Studio 7”a reality quiz game show thatmarks the WB network’s debut in that format. Pat lives on theUpper West Side with his wife and two children.

To all AIESEC Alumni!

AIESEC EdmontonAIESEC EdmontonAIESEC Edmonton will be hosting their annual Corporate

Breakfast on February 9th. This event will provide an

excellent opportunity to network, spread the AIESEC word to

potential partners and recognize existing supporters. For more

information or tickets, please contact Organizing Committee

President Kimberly Latos at [email protected]. �

AnnouncementThe second official event of theUniversity of Alberta AlumniBranch in Paris took place onMay 15, 2004, at the CanadianCultural Centre.

The distinguished guests includedCanadian Ambassador to France ClaudeLavendure, France-Canada Chamber ofCommerce director Florence Brillouin,and University of Alberta President RodFraser. The branch started in November2001 with a plan to reunite Universityof Alberta alumni and also connectthem with the France-Canada Chamberof Commerce. The following School ofBusiness grads were in attendance:

’98 Geraldine Escofet, MBA’01 Maggy Guirle, MBA’00 Cameron Moore, BCom’99 Aly Virani, BCom

(Aly has since moved to London, England)



classnotes


’90 Darryl Szafranski, BCom,’98 MBA, and ’98 Doug McLean,BCom, are heading up mar-keting for University of Al-berta Athletics.

Darryl, the area’s marketingDarryl, the area’s marketingmanager,manager, recruited Doug last Novemberto work with him as an events coordinator.Both men share a passion for amateursports and the exciting programs availableat the University of Alberta. “We hope tosee athletics more entrenched in greaterEdmonton and the university community.Our goal is to expose, inform, and educate.The programs are tremendous and go wellbeyond Bears and Panda games. We have alot to offer including a wide range ofsports camps,” explains Darryl.

Darryl joined the athletics area in 1998upon completion of his MBA. He was oneof the first graduates with a specializationin sports and recreation management. Ath-letics at the U of A was like home to Dar-ryl. He played for the Golden Bears as awide receiver while he pursued his BComfrom 1986 to 1990. He also acted as cap-tain his last year on the team and receivedthe Jimmie Condon Athletics Scholarship forthree consecutive years.

While pursuing his MBA, Darrylworked part time in the Ath-letics area assisting with thefootball program. He wascharged with getting the alumnimore involved as well as runningfootball camps for high schoolstudents. Darryl still plays sports

recreationally and is also ac-tively involved in coaching hisson and daughter’s hockey andsoccer teams. When askedabout his future ambitions,Darryl made it clear that hisheart is in amateur sports. “I’mmore interested in amateursports than anything else. I’veseen first hand the positivebenefits that sports can haveon our youth from elementaryschool right up to the univer-sity level. It develops a person’scharacter. My participation insports increased my self confi-dence and truly shaped who Iam today.”

Similarly, Doug has also beenactively involved in sports in-cluding basketball, football andhockey. “Once my dream ofplaying in pro sports died, I be-gan to pursue the next bestthing. For me, this is a careerin sports management,” saysDoug. In 1999, Doug secured asix-month intern position withthe International UniversitySports Federation in Belgium,

which allowed him to get his feet wet invarious areas of management. In the fall of2000, Doug came back to Canada andworked with the World Championships inAthletics. He was the coordinator for theirinternational division and his main role wasto oversee the activities of visiting digni-taries and VIPs.

A position with U of A Athletics is a goodfit for Doug. “I’ve gone to Panda and Bears

games since I was ten-years old. Work-ing with U of A Athletics is a good

combination. I’m able to use mybusiness education and it’s tiedto what I’m most interested in,”

says Doug. In addition to working withU of A Athletics, Doug also coacheshigh school basketball and volunteers

as a fraternity advisor on campus. ��

Home Sweet Home

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classnotes


’90 Vera McCarty, of Edmon-ton, Alberta, spoke at the June2004 Convocation Breakfast at theChâteau Lacombe Crowne Plaza ho-tel together with Mark Kluchky, ofEdmonton, Alberta, who is also aSchool of Business grad (’96 MBA).

’90 Kevin Yaremchuk, BCom,of Phoenix, Arizona, resigned fromIBM after 14 years with that com-pany to assume responsibilities asVice President in Honeywell Interna-tional’s intellectual property divi-sion. Kevin and his wife Delicia (neeBrokop, BA 1989) of 12 years are ex-cited about moving to the warmPhoenix climate but are leaving be-hind good friends and colleagues inthe Connecticut/New York area.Their two boys, Joseph (5 years) andMitchell (16 months), will also havefun exploring the southwest USA!Kevin completed an Executive Mas-ter of Science degree from the Uni-versity of Texas at Austin in 2001,and along with the U of A degree,this has proven very valuable in hiscareer development.

’91 Phyllis Woolley-Fisher,MPM, of Edmonton, Alberta, hasteamed up with Deborah Witwickito form a new company called W2Communication, which offers edu-cational, training and coachingprograms on the art, practice andscience of mindful leadership.W2 works with individuals and organizations to help them

strengthen their ability to commu-nicate and engage with one another – paving the way forgreater understanding, collabora-tion and co-operation. Real dia-logue between people of differentgifts, talents, perspectives, and values is one of the most elusiveaspects in most organizations.And it is one of the most crucial.Elaine McCoy, President of TheMacleod Institute of Calgary, says,“that the work W2 has done withthe Institute has cleared a pathforward through dialogue resultingin increased collaboration and excellence among our team.” Toreach W2, contact Phyllis at herhome office 435-3305 or Deborahat 454-7466.

’95 Brad Ferguson, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed to the Board of Direc-tors, Edmonton Space and ScienceFoundation.

’92 Les J Creasy, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed Partner with MeyersNorris Penny LLP

’92 Jason Lammerts, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta, was re-cently appointed Senior Vice President for Remington Develop-ment Corporation.

’94 Scott Kashuba, MBA, of Edmonton, Alberta, accepted anewly-created position as Manager

within the Deputy Minister’s officeat Alberta Sustainable Resource De-velopment. He started the new jobon October 1st. “While I am look-ing forward to this exciting newchallenge, it was a difficult deci-sion to make as I have enjoyed mytime at Acton working with greatcolleagues and clients,” says Scott.

’95 Pernille Ironside, BCom,of New York, writes: “Since May, I started a new job with UNICEFas the Project Office on Justiceand Rule of Law in the Humanitar-ian Policy and Advocacy Unit, Of-fice of Emergency Programs.” InNovember, Pernille attended alunch with other NY alumni and adelegation of U of A MBA studentswith NET IMPACT.

’95 Wes Zaboschuk, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, writes: “Afterspending six years in the publish-ing business with McGraw-Hill andJohn Wiley & Sons, my clients atNAIT hired me in the Fall of 2002.I coordinate the Professional Sell-ing Skills and Applied Sales coursesas well as teach Introductory Marketing. I have plans to startmy MBA in the fall of 2005.” Wescan be reached by email [email protected].

’96 Blain Banick, MBA, ofNew York, New York, was ap-pointed Chief Marketing Officer ofBallard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll.Prior to taking this position, Blainserved as Gray Cary’s marketing director for the past two years.Before his time at Gray Cary, Banick held senior-level marketingpositions at Strasburger & Price(1999-2002) in Dallas and McLen-nan Ross (1997-1999) in Edmonton.

’98 Susan Budge, MBA, ofBeaumont, Alberta, a ManagementScience PhD student, successfullydefended her thesis on September,17. The title of her thesis was:“Emergency Medical Service Sys-tems: Modelling Uncertainty inResponse Time.” Congratulations!

’98 Julie Gagnon, LLB, ’94BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, re-cently joined the partnership ofReynolds, Mirth, Richards, andFarmer.

’98 Doug McLean, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, who works asan Athletic Events Coordinator atthe University of Alberta, writes:“University sport is changingsomewhat to reflect more of abusiness approach and that’s cer-tainly what I find exciting aboutbeing involved. Personally, mywork experience since graduationhas been heavy in sport manage-ment and often people are sur-

lectures

Eric Geddes BreakfastLecture Series 2004/05

Established in honour of the late Eric Geddes (’47 BCom) in recognition of his long- standing volunteer contributions as and commitment to his School, University, and the Edmonton community.

Select Friday mornings at the Royal Glenora 11160 River Valley Road7:00 am – Coffee and Registration 7:15 am – Buffet Breakfast & Lecture8:30 am – Event Conclusion.

January 14, 2005,Speaker Erhan ErkutRSVP Deadline – January 11

February 11, 2005,Speaker Jennifer ArgoRSVP Deadline – February 8

March 4, 2005,Speaker Karim JamalRSVP Deadline – March 1

Cost: $17.50 per lecture or $50 for all 3 lectures (prepaid)

For more information or to register,please email [email protected] or call (780) 492-4083.

Attention Attention Attention all BSBS all BSBS all BSBS or RMBS Executive Alumni…or RMBS Executive Alumni…or RMBS Executive Alumni…

We have been looking for you!We have been looking for you!We have been looking for you! Right now, the Rocky

Mountain Business Seminar (previously Banff Student Business

Seminar) is trying to contact past Executive Alumni. This year,

RMBS will be celebrating its landmark 40th year due in large to

the hard work and dedication of past executives. If you are

interested in keeping in touch or would like to be involved in

RMBS 2005 – February 21-25, please give us a call (780)

492-2736 or send me an email at [email protected].

Cheers! Chris Ziebart (Chairperson, RMBS 2005). ��



classnotes


prised when I tell them I have a business degree and not a background in physical education.I always find that interesting as Isee many applicable tools I gainedduring my Co-op BCom that fitwell with what I do today.” Dougcan be contacted by email [email protected] and isalso shown on page 40.

’98 Jared Smith, BCom, of Edmonton, Alberta, celebrated Incite’s fifth birthday party atMaxwell Taylor’s in June. Jared andTed Kouri, also a School of Businessgraduate (’97 BCom), started InciteSolutions Inc., a company that actsas an outsourced marketing depart-ment for clients that depend onword of mouth for their growth.Incite becomes an ongoing resourcefor their clients: researching, plan-ning, branding, and executing all oftheir communications activitiesfrom Web sites and marketing ma-terials to promotions and events.Jared can be reached by email [email protected].

’98 Trevor Lukey, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, recentlyjoined the partnership of VeresPicton and Co.

’00’00 Brent Agerbak, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, was recentlyappointed Manager for CIBC Com-mercial Banking.

’00 Cindy Lieu, BCom,of Edmonton, Alberta,writes: “Since my last update about my trip toEurope in 2002, I havegone back to school and

obtained a public relations diploma -a wonderful complement to myBCom in marketing. I am now work-ing in the communications field andenjoying the experience tremen-dously. Recently, my brother Peter,who is also a School of Businessgraduate (’98 BCom), married AnuSharma, his high school sweetheart.

’00 Mike Loenen, MBA, ofZionsville, Indiana, will be visitingthe School on February 4 and 5,2005 to give seminars on riskmanagement in the energy/elec-tricity sector. He will also meetwith students to discuss careersand working in the US. Mike is aPricing/Risk Analyst with AcesPower Marketing based in Indiana.To learn more about Aces PowerMarketing go to http://acespower.com/.

’00 Jamie Montgomery,BCom, of Uppsala, Sweden,married his girlfriend Ceciliaon May 15, 2004. Congrat-ulations! Jamie’s sister Kellyworks as an administrativeassistant in the MBA officeat the School of Business.

’00 Brent Poohkay, MBA, andAssistant Dean of Technology forthe School of Business, writes: “In-tel has completed a case study ofthe School’s mobile computing ande-learning initiatives and has refer-enced them as best practices forthe higher education vertical mar-ket. The School of Business is theonly Business School that has beentargeted by Intel for this type ofcase study. Other “wireless” Univer-sities featured at Intel.com areBoston College, University of

British Columbia, Univer-sity of Toronto andKasetsart University inThailand. This externalrecognition by one of thetop global technologycompanies is more evi-

dence of the world-class teaching

and learning environment theSchool has worked to create forbusiness students here inEdmonton.”

’02 Neil Eiserman, BCom,writes: “After completing my BCom,I traveled to London, England insearch of a job. Within a fewmonths, I began work at a smallboutique consultancy specialising inhigh level strategy planning predom-inately for Utility companies. Iworked there for a year before tak-ing a summer off to travel Englandand Europe. After my summer of ad-venture, I returned to London andbegan work for PA consulting fo-cused in strategy and Project Man-agement, where I am to this day.”

’02 Timothy Wong,BCom, of Edmonton, Al-berta writes: “I work for AllWeather Windows in theirhead office location. A localcompany, started in 1979,All Weather Windows is thelargest manufacturer ofwindows and doors in thePrairies. In Edmontonalone, 60 percent of hous-ing starts in 2003 have ourwindows. We are currentlyrobustly entering the Ontario andBritish Columbia markets. There areover 700 employees nationwidewith the majority located here inEdmonton. My title is EdmontonHome Builders’ Sales Support. Myone year anniversary with thecompany will be on Wednesday! Inshort, I am the “go-to guy” for allten of the Edmonton Sales En-trepreneurs ensuring orders are putthrough correctly. I also handle anyissues regarding job sites such asmissing, damaged, or wrong win-dows and/or doors.”Timothy wasmarried on May 15, 2004, toGinny Tsui and they welcomedtheir first child Nicholas JasonWong on September 1st, at 11:14am. He weighed in at 5 poundsand 12 ounces. Both Ginny andNicholas are doing very well! Dadis on cloud nine.

Olympic Fever

’02 Paul Joliat, ’02 Paul Joliat, MBA, of Toronto, Ontario,writes: “Things here in Toronto are good. I amworking away on a few Olympic-related mar-keting projects and trying to secure more.The biggest thrill I had recently was carryingthe Olympic Torch in Montreal. It was amaz-ing. I was one of only 120 Canadians to do so!All in all, quite an amazing experience.”



classnotes


’03 Rob Jekielek, BCom, ofNew York, New York, writes:“Things continue to go very welland I have been involved in anumber of interesting projects in-cluding recently running a projectfor the WEF (one of our large in-ternational clients) African Summitin Maputo. Also, my stay in SouthAfrica was cut short as I spentthree months in Bonn, MediaTenor’s German office. I’m cur-rently in Media Tenor’s New YorkCity office for at least a year.”

’04 Hwee-Cheng Tan, PhD,successfully defended her thesis onJune 16, 2004. The title of her thesis was: “An ExperimentalInvestigation of the Effect of Accounting Discretion on the Re-porting of Smooth Increasing Earn-ings by Managers.” Congratulations!

’04 Jason Ding, BCom, of Ed-monton, Alberta, took a positionwith KPMG in September 2004.Jason can be reached at [email protected].

’04 Jane Saber, PhD, of Tyler,Texas, a Marketing PhD student,successfully defended her thesis onJune 2, 2004. The title of Jane’sthesis was: “Do you hear what Ihear? The SESER framework of salescommunication: Listening skills andsales success.” Congratulations!

’04 Andrea TecunOlmos, BCom, ofEdmonton, Alberta, volunteered at theChancellor’s Cup GolfTournament, whichwas held in May

2004 at the Blackhawk Golf Club.

’04 Valerie Trifts, a PhD Marketing student, successfullydefended her thesis on June 15.The title of her thesis was: “Pro-viding Access to Uncensored Com-petitor Information: Attribution-and Information-Based Determi-nants of Consumer Preference.”Congratulations!

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Four Business alumni were celebrated

with Alumni Honour Awards at the 2004

Alumni Recognition Awards held during

Reunion Weekend. The awards acknowl-

edge the significant contributions made

over a number of years by University of

Alberta alumni in their local communi-

ties and beyond.

This year’s Business recipients include:

Donald F. Archibald,Donald F. Archibald, ’82 BCom,Howard Crone, ’84 BSc(Eng), and Alison Jones, ’85 BSc, teamed up in1996 to build the phenomenally suc-cessful oil and gas producer CypressEnergy, a company that started withan initial market capitalization of

$6 million and not even five years later sold for $800 million.Joining forces again, they formed Cequel Energy Inc., a junioroil and gas exploration and production company, which in July2004 merged with Progress Energy to form Progress EnergyTrust. In addition to their innovative business leadership, theyare active in the community and professional organizations.All three were recognized in 1999 by Report on Business asamong “Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.”

Harold Kingston,Harold Kingston, ’73 BCom, is afounder of Kingston Ross PasnakLLP. Active in the community, he isa board member of WINGS of Provi-dence, a second-stage women’sshelter, and the president of the Alberta Diabetes Foundation. He is

the Chair of the Alberta/NWT Chapter of the Canadian BreastCancer Foundation and Vice-Chair of its national board. He is

also a board member, executive committee member, and finance chair of Northlands Park. In recognition of his serviceto his profession, he was recently granted a Fellowship fromthe Alberta Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Peter K. Lau,Peter K. Lau, ’75 BCom, is theChair and CEO of Giordano Interna-tional Limited, a Hong Kong retailoperation listed on the Hong Kongstock exchange since 1992. A trail-blazer, Lau left a middle-manage-ment position at a Calgary oil and

gas company for a sales manager position with Giordano.Within two years, he reached senior management. Under hisvisionary leadership—combining Eastern and Western philoso-phies—Giordano has experienced phenomenal growth. Today,it serves more than 1.5 billion customers in 26 countries. A be-liever in giving back to the community, Lau has helped buildschools for underprivileged students in rural China.

Peter C. Read,Peter C. Read, ’86 BSc(Eng), ’87MBA, is a staunch advocate of theUniversity of Alberta mining engi-neering program, and he champi-oned the successful campaign thatkept the program open when itfaced closure. He helped establishthe University’s Alberta Chamber of

Resources Industry Chair in Mining Engineering and was in-volved in implementing a master’s degree program in extrac-tion engineering. As General Manager of Extraction at Syn-crude Canada, he is responsible for an operation that has morethan 500 staff and a budget that exceeds $150 million. He vol-unteers with numerous community, sporting, and professionalorganizations.

Business Alumni Receive Special Recognition

The 2005 Canadian Business Leader Award Recipient is Ross Grieve,President and CEO, PCL Construction Group Inc. Please join us for the 24th Awards Ceremonyon Wednesday, March 23, 2005, at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton. For ticketsand information, call (780) 492-2348 or go to www.bus.ualberta.ca. ��

2005 Canadian Business Leader Award


What business does theSchool of Business have in the health care sector? Plenty. That’s the word from Professor Er-

han Erkut and Dan Haight, ’97 BCom.Together,

they run the School of Business’Centre for Ex-

cellence in Operations (CEO), which is an out-

reach centre for applied research partnerships

between CEO and Alberta organizations.

Regardless of the sector, the focus of these partnershipsis on assisting the organization with managing some as-pect of their operations. CEO started up two years ago witha budget of $7K. Successes with regional EMS services ledto partnerships in other health sectors with organizationssuch as Alberta Health and Wellness. The Centre is now op-erating at full capacity and with a budget of close to $300K.“Health Care operations are fertile ground for operationsresearch,” notes Erkut, the Academic Director of CEO. Thethree-year contract with Alberta Health and Wellness is to as-sess the impact of, and develop strategy for, the Access Stan-dards proposed by the Alberta health minister.

Do we need more surgeons, more access to radiology, moreurologists, or all of the above? What impact will more MRImachines have on demand within the system? What resources– both human and technical – will weneed to provide quality health care in thefuture? CEO is examining the logisticsaround key areas in the health care sys-tem to help answer these questions.

Operations research (OR) involves theuse of computer models and technologyto assist in decision making. In this case,CEO is using historical data to develop itsOR models of service in the health sector.Erkut notes that while processes in thehealth sector are similar to those in otherservice sectors, there are critical differ-ences. For example, health care is freein Alberta so the interaction between de-mand and supply is not governed by pricesas in a free market. Also, factors demo-graphics, the availability of new treat-ments, and other factors can contribute

to a significant increase in demand over the next ten years.“One needs to forecast demand and plan for capacity,” saysErkut. “There are a variety of complicated procedures to an-alyze and we are able to take a ‘whole systems’ approach tothe problem.” For example, CEO is examining MRI logistics,a one-stop service, but is also developing models to exam-ine complicated multi-stage procedures such as prostate can-cer treatment. “Initially, a patient will see a urologist andthen, after assessment, the paths for treatment involve a com-plicated and varying set of stages,” says Erkut. One patientmay need surgery, another may need radiology, and anothermay need both.

CEO uses students under the direction of academics and in-dustry to perform the analysis, so for Erkut, this year’s recipientof the INFORMS Teaching Award,* the circle of connectingresearch to students, to inform and benefit the communityis complete. For Erkut and Haight, this is an exciting timefor CEO as it breaks ground in a new direction.

For more information on CEO go to:www.bus.ualberta.ca/ceo.

D r . E r h a n E r k u tP ro f e s s o rVa rg o Te a c h i n g C h a i rF r a n c i s Wi n s p e a r P ro f e s s o r o f B u s i n e s sD i r e c t o r , C e n t r e f o r E x c e l l e n c e i n O p e r at i o n sP u n k Wa n n a b i e

*The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international scien-

tific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to

help improve decision-making, management, and operations. They are represented in application areas as di-

verse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, the stock market, and telecommunications.

The INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice is

given annually, if there is a suitable recipient, to a university

or college teacher for excellence in teaching the practice of

OR/MS. The purpose of this award is to recognize a teacher

who has succeeded in helping his or her students to acquire

the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective practition-

ers of operations research or the management sciences. An

“effective practitioner” has respect for, understanding of, and

the skills to surmount both the practical difficulties and the

technical challenges of doing good OR/MS work.

Please note: The Schoolalso has Health Organiza-tion Studies (HOS) whichlooks at health care froman organizational busi-ness perspective. Dr.Karen Golden-Biddle isthe Project Director forHOS.


business perspective

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All for a good cause – 2004 United Way Campaign


William Addington, ‘74 BCom, ‘91 MBAExecutive Vice President, Canadian Western BankBAA Past President

Al Anderson, ‘67 BComConsultant, Alberta Justice

Ross Bradford, ‘79 LLB, ‘85 MBA School of Business Faculty Representative

Aaron Brown, ’97 BComManager, Portfolio Analysis, Financial Services, U of ABAA Treasurer

Chelsea BaronPresident, Business Students’ Association

Elke ChristiansonDirector, External Relations, School of Business

Jami DrakeManager, Alumni Programs, School of Business

Chad ElliottPresident, MBA Association

Russ Farmer, ’04 MBAActon Consulting Ltd.

Barton Goth, ’03 MBAGoth & Company Inc.

Guy Kerr, ’95 MBAPresident, Workers’ Compensation BoardU of A Alumni Council Business Representative

Harvey Lawton, ’73 BComFinancial Benefits GroupAon Reed Stenhouse Inc.

Darryl Lesiuk,’91 BComPresident and CEO, Pacific Wine and Spirits Ltd.

Allan Mah, ‘75 BComConsultant

Robert Parks, ’99 MBAMarketing ConsultantCommunity Services, City of EdmontonBAA Vice President

Chris Pilger, ’90 BComManager, CommunicationsInstitute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta

Patricia Porter, ‘91 MBAThe Write Answer

Rosa Spadavecchia, ’01 MBAThe Kachkar Public Relations Group

Paul Rechner, ’93 BCom, ’00 MBA Corporate Currency TraderCustom House Currency ExchangeBAA President

Shelley Teasdale, ’01 BComBusiness Application Support, Alberta Government ServicesBAA Secretary

BAA Board of Directors

Business Advisory Council MembersGordon ArnellChairmanBrookfield Properties CorporationToronto, Ontario

Mary ArnoldPresidentRichford Holdings LtdEdmonton, Alberta

Hugh BoltonChairman of the BoardEPCOR Utilities IncEdmonton, Alberta

Patrick DanielPresident and CEOEnbridge IncCalgary, Alberta

Marc de La BruyèreManaging DirectorMaclab EnterprisesEdmonton, Alberta

Jim DinningExecutive Vice PresidentTransAlta CorporationCalgary, Alberta

Rosemary DomeckiPresidentDomtex Equities Inc.Dallas, Texas

John FergusonChairmanPrinceton Developments LtdEdmonton, Alberta ChairTransAlta CorporationCalgary, Alberta

Roderick FraserPresident and Vice-ChancellorUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta

Karl FunkePresident and CEOMultitest elektronische Systeme GmbHRosenheim, Germany

Douglas Goss QCCounselBryan and CompanyEdmonton, Alberta

Paul HaggisPresident and CEOOntario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS)Toronto, Ontario

Barry JamesManaging PartnerPricewaterhouseCoopersEdmonton, Alberta

Hiroshi KurimotoPresidentNagoya University of Commerce and Business AdministrationNisshin-shi, Aichi, Japan

Phil LachambreExecutive Vice President and CFOSyncrude Canada LtdFort McMurray, Alberta

R J (Bob) MacLeanPresidentRJM CorpEdmonton, Alberta

Bernard MahSenior Vice PresidentGiordano International LtdKowloon, Hong Kong

Gay MitchellExecutive Vice President - OntarioRoyal Bank of CanadaToronto, Ontario

Amit MongaVice President, Technology InvestingMDS Capital CorpToronto, Ontario

Randall MorckStephen A Jarislowsky Distinguished Chair in FinanceUniversity of Alberta School of BusinessEdmonton, Alberta

Mike PercyStanley A Milner Professor and DeanUniversity of Alberta School of BusinessEdmonton, Alberta

Bob PhillipsVancouver, British Columbia

Roger PhillipsDirector of several listed companiesRegina, Saskatchewan

Larry PollockPresident and CEOCanadian Western BankEdmonton, Alberta

Gerry ProttiExecutive Vice President Corporate RelationsEnCana CorporationCalgary, Alberta

Charlotte RobbSenior Vice President, OperationsPrairies and Western RegionBusiness Development Bank of CanadaEdmonton, Alberta

Bob SandermanPresident Oakwood Commercial Ventures, LLCDenver, Colorado

Joseph ThompsonChairmanPCL Construction Group Inc.Edmonton, Alberta

Carter TsengFounder, Vice Chairman, and CEOE-Tech Inc andFounder and Executive Vice PresidentMicrotek IncBeijing, China, and Taiwan

Guy TurcottePresident and CEOWestern Oil Sands IncCalgary, Alberta

Steven WilliamsExecutive Vice President, Oil SandsSuncor Energy IncFort McMurray, Alberta

William WinspearRetired BusinessmanDallas, Texas

Ralph YoungPresident and CEOMelcor Developments LtdEdmonton, Alberta


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Business Alumni Magazine (Fall04/Winter05)

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Transcript of Business Alumni Magazine (Fall04/Winter05)