Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame 2018

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Table of Contents 7

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WELCOME MESSAGE Colin MacDonald and Mark Parkhill share the benefits of being involved with Junior Achievement and the Nova

25 BUILDING ON A LEGACY With the lessons he learned at his father’s side, Rob Steele creates his own business empire

Scotia Business Hall of Fame

28 PAST LAUREATES The roster of Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame tells the story of our province’s economic transformation

BUSINESS HALL OF FAME GALA AGENDA

10 EMCEE PROFILES Students Jonah Larsen, Alice Song, and Alexander Colaiacovo host the evening’s festivities 12 VOLUNTEERS Many people give their time and energy to make Junior Achievement successful 14 BEING THE CHANGE Diane Campbell wants to see more women lead businesses and gain recognition for their work 21 RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME Stu Rath combines business savvy, good timing, and a bit of luck

30 IT TAKES ALL KINDS Four distinct categories of laureates are recognized in Business Hall of Fame honour roll 32 FROM T-SHIRTS TO TRUCKS How Junior Achievement prepared Brandon Moak for managing a high-tech start-up 33 LOOKING BACK ON 50 YEARS Past laureate Irene d’Entremont recalls the early days of the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame and Junior Achievement

Congratulations Stu, Diane and Rob 2018 Laureates inducted into the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame

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2017­–2018 Board of Directors Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mark Parkhill KPMG, Chair Jennifer Chiasson NSCC, 1st Vice Chair Bruce Young RBC, 2nd Vice Chair Paul Bugden EastLink, Secretary Karn Nichols Sobey School of Business, Vice Secretary Mark Sidebottom Nova Scotia Power, Treasurer Wayne Crawley Venor Talent, Executive at Large Kristin Williams President & CEO DIRECTORS Michael Brown Swept Tim Blais Gateway Business Brokers Michelle Bussey NSCC Foundation Jakki Brierley-Shorrok Fastrak Global Inc. Charl Du Plooy PWC Canada Stephanie Fitzner Student/JA Alumni Michelle Fitzgerald Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette Eric Fry Sandler Training Chris Guinan CIBC Wood Gundy Troy Harnish Rogers Lynn Hogan Gillespie Province of Nova Scotia Paul Janes Deloitte Lori-Anne Jones Shift Strategies – Change Consulting Roger King Supplement King – Canada Chrystiane Mallaley National Public Relations Andrew MacKinnon SBW Jodi Posaved Grassroots Human Resources Consulting Miriam Zitner Halifax Partnership

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Dear friends This year, we celebrate the induction of our 2018 Laureates: Stu Rath, Diane Campbell, and Rob Steele. We are honoured to recognize their life-time achievements and inspiring contributions to business and entrepreneurship in Nova Scotia. They join our Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame, the home of titans, industry giants, sector architects, and business legends who have blazed the trail for this generation of dreamers to put their ideas into action.

Our job at Junior Achievement is to prime the pipeline. We create opportunities for youth to experience entrepreneurship, become financially literate and job ready. Our mission is to inspire and prepare youth for the global economy. We do this with hands-on programs that happen both in the classroom and in community settings. Some programs are incubated inside host companies. In each instance, we pair exceptional curriculum with enthusiastic and knowledgeable mentors from the business community to offer a real-world perspective.

The demand for JA has never been higher, and this year we will deliver a record number of programs, reach a record number of students, and engage a record number of volunteers. In the last few years, we have doubled program weight and reach, diversified our program mix, expanded program offerings to start younger and continue longer. After 50 years of operation, we know how to get youth “from here, to there.” All we need is a little help from our friends.

Thank you for being a part of the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame program, in support of Junior Achievement. This is a community of laureates, chairmen, governors, and partners. But even more so, it’s a community of devoted family and friends who are committed to the same goal: a vibrant future for our province. With your help, JA will continue to recognize the success of individuals such as Stu, Diane, and Rob. And we will keep producing hard-working and determined youth who know what to do and how to do it. Achievers are financially literate, have accelerated leadership capacity, and an entrepreneurial drive that will take us forward for the next 50 years and beyond.

Colin MacDonald Mark Parkhill Chair, Board of Governors Chair, Board of Directors 2015 Laureate, Chairman Circle JA of Nova Scotia JABHoF 7

Board of Governors

Acadia University Peter Ricketts

CIBC Mike Bagnall

Accomplice Kristen Allison

Cluett Insurance Brokers Inc. Roy Cluett

Advocate Jill & Sean Murray

Colour Chris Keevill

East Coast Credit Union iNova Mauro Ricordi

Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette Jeff Forbes

East Coast Credit Union Teachers Plus Steve Richard

Laureate Diane Campbell

Nautel Kevin Rodgers

Newcap Radio Rob Steele FMAV Ryan McKinnon

Ambassatours Gray Line Charter and Tours Dennis Campbell

Motor Hub Duane Rath

Laureate Stu Rath

Nicom Pat d’Entremont

Cox & Palmer Daniel Gallivan Grant Thornton LLP Wade Taylor

Laureate Rob Steele

Nova Scotia Business Inc. Laurel Broten Barrington Consulting Group Andrew Creaser

CUA Marie Mullally Halifax Convention Centre Carrie Cussons

Maritime Travel Inc. Rob Dexter

Nova Scotia Power Mark Sidebottom BMO Bank of Montreal Gary Anderson

BMO Nesbitt Greg Bakeeff

Dalhousie University (Faculty of Management) Sylvain Charlebois

Deloitte Paul Janes

Heritage Gas John Hawkins

High Liner Foods Incorporated Henry Demone

McInnes Cooper Cheryl Hodder Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation Bob MacKinnon

Medavie Blue Cross Kris Duffy NSCC Don Bureaux

Business Development Bank of Canada Gina Gale

Chorus Joe Randell

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East Coast Credit Union Ken Shea

East Coast Credit Union Provincial Gov Employees Ingrid Foshay Murphy

HXA Shane DeCoste

Michelin North America (Canada) Inc. Jeff MacLean

Innovacorp Malcom Fraser

MNP Bill Vienneau

Office Interiors Jim Mills

Pary Ice Gary MacKenzie

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Event Agenda 6:30 DINNER IS SERVED PwC Maxime Lessard

Seaboard Transport Group Mark Shannon

7:30 PROGRAM STARTS | 9:20 PROGRAM ENDS ALUMNI STORY – FROM HERE TO THERE Alexa Bordage, JA Alumni

Queen’s Realty James Bagnell

Sobey School of Business Patricia Bradshaw

RBC Roger Howard

Sobeys School of Business (Master of Finance) Colin Dodds

EMCEE INTRODUCTIONS Alexander Colaiacovo, Alice Song and Jonah Larsen IN HONOUR OF THE CHAIR Mark Parkhill, Chair JA Nova Scotia SUPPORTING JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT Colin MacDonald, Chair Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame, 2015 Laureate

RBC Dominion Securities Philip Jenkins

Revolve Phil Otto

Southwest Properties Josef Spatz

Stanfield’s Thomas Stanfield

CONGRATULATIONS ROB ON YOUR INDUCTION INTO THE NOVA SCOTIA BUSINESS HALL OF FAME!

Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada Dawn Anderson

Steele Auto Group Rob Steele

FROM ALL OF US AT STEELE AUTO GROUP

We celebrate The Berkeley Diane!

Catherineyou, Campbell We are honoured that our very own Diane Campbell has been inducted into the JA Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame.

Your leadership, vision, and drive are an inspiration to all of us here at The Berkeley as well as the broader Nova Scotian business community.

From your entire team, The Municipal Group Congratulations! of Companies David Wood

Scotia Investments Limited George Bishop

Love WhereVenor You Live Ian Sullivan

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2018 LAUREATE: STU RATH Reflection and Introduction by Junior Achiever, Alexander Colaiacovo VOLUNTEER & ALUMNI OF THE YEAR AWARDS Kristin Williams, President & CEO, JA Nova Scotia

Sandler Training Eric Fry

Scotiabank Jim Rogers

PRESENTING SPONSOR Ken Shea, President & CEO, East Coast Credit Union

VISIT US ONLINE AT: WWW.STEELEAUTO.COM

TD Canada Trust Scott Belton

SBW Andrew MacKinnon

A PARENT’S STORY Christine Hartlen, Parent of Junior Achiever, Ryan Hartlen

2018 LAUREATE: DIANE CAMPBELL Reflection and Introduction by Junior Achiever, Alice Song SPONSOR TRIBUTE Shakara Joseph, COO, JA Nova Scotia 2018 LAUREATE: ROB STEELE Reflection and Introduction by Junior Achiever, Jonah Larsen RAFFLE DRAW Jennifer Chiasson, Vice Chair JA Nova Scotia & Susan Grant, Air Canada CLOSING REMARKS – WE ARE JA Kristin Williams, President & CEO, JA Nova Scotia

Westwood Properties Danny Chedrawe

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Emcee Profiles

GOING DOWN THE ROAD MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE TO CONVINCE STUDENTS THEY CAN THRIVE IN THEIR HOME PROVINCE

BY KEN PARTRIDGE

Jonah Larsen

Alice Song

Alexander Colaiacovo

“My goals are big, so to make the connections I need I would thrive better in a bigger city.”

“I want a higher level of competition.”

These quotes from two of this year’s Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame student emcees show they’ve learned the lessons offered by their Junior Achievement experience and see business as their future. However, it would appear more work needs to be done to convince them that future is here.

Jonah Larsen, a Grade 12 student at Citadel High, is already a serial entrepreneur. He runs a small customapparel business called Metro Screen Prints with his dad and has also started and moved on from at least three other businesses. He sees his future in engineering or information technology.

“I want to continue to pursue entrepreneurship, ultimately in the fields of electric cars or solar energy,” Larsen says.

“There isn’t enough here to let me pursue those interests. I need a bigger centre.”

Alice Song agrees. A Grade 11 student at Citadel High, Song already has her eyes set on a much bigger picture. “World domination,” Song replies when asked about her future plans.

She isn’t sure what her worlddominating product will be yet, but she knows how she plans to get there. “The University of Toronto offers a 2 + 2 program, with two years study in Toronto and two years in China,” she says. “I’m going to study biochemical engineering to develop a product and then start a company that’s unstoppable.”

The exception to Larsen’s and Song’s point of view is Alexander Colaiacovo, the third student MC. This Grade 12 student from Prince Andrew High School wants to study computer science and is comfortable predicting his future will be right here at home.

“There are great opportunities away,” Colaiacovo says. “But there are some great ones here too. The more of us that stay here, the more opportunities there will be here.”

Colaiacovo’s argument sways Song.

She still sees her future in a place like Toronto, but eventually she sees herself returning home, too. “I want a balance between work and life. I can make more money in Toronto, but it’ll be tiring. So eventually I’ll take the experience gained there and return here.”

All three agree on the affect Junior Achievement has had on their future.

“The biggest thing I learned from JA is how important it is to have a great team and delegating to them,” Larsen says. “All my other businesses eventually shut down because there was just me and I was trying to do everything. No business is going to be successful if there’s just one person.”

Song learned that it isn’t all about success.

“You can fail and learn from that and come back as a higher level of competitor,” she says.

And JA taught Colaiacovo about the value of paying it forward. “Success is being in a position to help other people and mentor the next generation to make the world even better,” he says. “It’s not about money; it’s about helping people.”

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Volunteers LIFE-LONG LEARNING VIA VOLUNTEERING JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT VOLUNTEERS DISCOVER ONGOING CAREER ENHANCEMENT ONE OF MANY BENEFITS OF GIVING BACK

BY KATIE INGRAM As an organization, Junior Achievement focuses on three main ideals: financial literacy, workplace readiness, and entrepreneurship.

While these skills help students ready themselves for the posthigh school and business worlds, the impact JA has on those involved goes beyond the student level.

Whether they’re a former JA participant, a concerned parent, or someone looking to give back to the community, JA attracts a variety of mentors from a diverse array of backgrounds, all of whom repeatedly give back to the program.

For many, donating their time is its own reward. However, there are many other benefits to participating in one or several of JA’s programs.

Alessandra Pagnotella enjoys being able to learn something from a different group of people, each time she volunteers.

“There’s always ideas you might not think of, that other people open up your eyes too,” says Pagnotella, property and accounts manager at Sterling Properties, and manager of Sun City Tanning Studio.

She’s worked with students at Citadel High in Halifax off and on since 2010. This year she was an advisor for The Other Half, a clothing company, an idea she didn’t fully support in the beginning.

Pagnotella says when the group of five students pitched the product, she and her fellow advisors were skeptical because clothing is such a competitive market. However, the students assured her they did their research. They went around school and asked their classmates what they’d like to see in a hoodie, including the cost, style, and preferred colours.

In the end, The Other Half made $6,500 in sales, won regional and provincial pitch competitions as well as the JA Company of the Year. This experience reminded Pagnotella that businesses need to constantly communicate with their client or customer base to ensure needs are met. For her, this could be anything from asking someone how they liked a service to inquiring about the amenities a renter would like for their apartment.

“I don’t want to say it’s common sense because it’s not that,” she says. “Your clients aren’t just going tell you what they want; you need to get it out of them.”

Sometimes entrepreneurialism is one person creating something and seeing it through from idea to product. Other times it’s a group of people working together. No matter how many people are working on a project and no matter how smoothly things are going, they can hit a road block.

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This is something that Sir John A. MacDonald High School volunteer Chad Lefebvre says he’s constantly reminded of when working with his students.

“Sometimes things go off the rails and you have to learn how to incorporate a lot of opinions really quickly,” he says. “I feel like high school students are full of great ideas, some great and some in need of support, but still you’re in that environment that’s very similar to a workplace or entrepreneurial setting.”

It’s not just students learning how to handle certain situations.

Lefebvre finds that because of the age gap, he’s able to fine-tune and build on his own skill set.

“Times are changing and the way they’re doing things are changing; it allows me the opportunity to interact with the next generation; it keeps me connected,” he says. “It allows me to use all my skills, like working with different kinds of people.”

Like many of those profiled, Lefebvre is a JA alumnus. He’s also a senior tax analyst at Deloitte and a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. While he found himself working in the business field, not everyone does, and this doesn’t mean their skills learned through JA are not wasted.

“You learn core business skills, but you also learning teamwork, team building, public speaking, networking,” he says. “They’re all things that can translate into other aspects of life.”

While life skills are learned by both participants and mentors, volunteering in general can also have a profound impact, both personally and professionally.

“Everybody says you get so much more out of volunteering than you give, but it really is true,” says Christina Millar, co-owner of Event Partners Group and producer at Millar Productions. “There’s no way to describe it unless you get involved in volunteering on a regular basis.”

Millar says she likes being able to help others find their passion or realize their potential.

“Some kids you open up their eyes,” she says. “They might not be the doctors and lawyers of the world, but they will be the one to take over that farm in Nova Scotia or go over to P.E.I. and become a vet-tech and they will pull up their grades because this is something they dream of doing.”

As someone who has been involved with the Economics for Success and Our Business World programs in the North Eastern area of the province, Millar is always happy to share JA volunteer stories with others.

“On the business side, it’s wonderful to be able to rattle off the different organizations you’re with,” she says. “Everyone likes a

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well-rounded CV these days, that’s a fact, but when you’ve been involved with an organization for so long, you get a real sense of pride out of that.”

For Lindsay Cross, this pride is one of the reasons she continues to volunteer. She was a junior achiever in high school and wanted to give back to an organization that helped her.

“As a young achiever, it not only gave me an introduction to the business world, but it gave me confidence in my own abilities, to contribute and be part of something, like a business, in a meaningful way,” she says. “Seeing something from idea to execution, it really gave me exposure to some lessons that inspired my own career path.”

With her hand-crafted, beeswax candle company, Memorial 2000 Inc., Cross was the vice-president of marketing. Now she’s director of marketing and strategy with Credit Union Atlantic, and recently mentored a group at Millwood High School in Lower Sackville.

She says another reason she keeps coming back to JA is the way volunteers are treated within the organization.

“They really do a good job at engaging volunteers and they appreciate the connections (with students) that can be made from alumni and people who are at different stages of their career path,” she says. “They find an opportunity for everyone, whether you have a couple hours to give or you want to be a company advisor and give 100+ hours; I think there’s a way everyone can get involved.”

While most of those who have mentored JA participants are established in the business world, others are still learning to navigate it themselves, like Shandria Evans.

Evans, an Acadia University accounting student, has been taking part in the company program held at the university for two years. She mentors students from schools across the valley region, including Horton High School and West King’s District High School.

Within the company program, students must start their business from the ground up, taking their business from idea to actual product. By taking part in this process several times, Evans is reminded that, no matter how advanced a person is in their career, they started from somewhere.

“We always continue to build on our accounting careers,” she says. “It has helped me rethink and go back to the basics of accounting.”

For accounting, these basics could include reviewing basic terms, principles, or concepts like the cost principle or a unit of measure assumption and applying them to a current practice.

As a former JA company program member herself, Evans is highly aware that mentors are looked up to by students. As a mentor, student, and business person, she makes sure her work and personal image is one that anyone would be proud of.

“You’re not doing this for you; you’re doing it for those looking up to you,” she says. “It gives you that boost to do what you have to do.”

In the case of Greg Randall, what he had to do was take the initiative and set up a JA program at his child’s school.

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“Once I learned about JA, I absolutely wanted to make sure they were part of our school, so I volunteered and got the program going,” says Randall, who also is the president of Performance Plus Financial Group Inc. “It’s very important because kids themselves are not going to find out about a program like JA or the idea of entrepreneurship until later in life or later in their academic careers,” he says. “To my knowledge there’s not a part of the current academic curriculum that introduces them to it.”

For Randall, parental involvement is more than just making sure a group is started; they also need to make sure their kids stay involved and active in the program.

“If the kids don’t know and aren’t being taught it in school, the first way they can be introduced to it is from people they see every day,” he says. “Parents are incredibly influential on their own or other kids in their community.”

coNGRATULATIONs New Business Hall of Fame Members

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Laureate Profile

BEING THE CHANGE DIANE CAMPBELL WANTS TO SEE MORE WOMEN LEAD BUSINESSES AND GAIN RECOGNITION FOR THEIR WORK

BY RICHARD WOODBURY When Diane Campbell learned she was being inducted into the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame, she went online to learn more about previous inductees. What she found surprised her.

“I was a little bit shocked actually when I went on the website and discovered that there had only been six women inducted previously,” she says, “and actually four on their own, two of those women were part of a couple, so I was somewhat shocked by that because there are all kinds of women locally who have businesses and successful businesses and should be honoured.”

She wants to help make that happen. “I’ll certainly try to help Junior Achievement push that concept forward because I do think more women need to be nominated who are probably more deserving than I am,” she says.

Of the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame’s 92 inductees, Campbell, 74, marks just the seventh woman to receive the honour, meaning 7.6 per cent of inductees are women.

Campbell’s used to being surrounded by men, whether it was law school where she was just one of three female graduates in a class of 56 or on the many male-dominated boards where she’s served.

Today, Campbell is the president and CEO of The Berkeley, a retirement home with four locations in the Halifax area. It opened in 1990; she bought it in 1994, and later opened more locations.

When it first opened, The Berkeley was an unusual addition to the local

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real-estate market. “An apartment with services” as Campbell puts it, the units had kitchenettes but not stoves, rather, people would get their meals at an on-site fullservice dining room.

The building had a nurse on duty 24 hours a day, there was a recreation co-ordinator who would provide residents with options for exercise and entertainment, and the residents didn’t have to worry about cleaning their units or doing their linens.

“All of those jobs are carried out on behalf of the resident, so they don’t really have a whole lot to be concerned about,” says Campbell. “They can just enjoy themselves.”

The Berkeley wasn’t an immediate success. Campbell’s husband, Wes, was an investor in it. “It was a new concept and it didn’t fill up very quickly,” she recalls.

“In fact, they didn’t have enough money to operate it and ultimately in 1993, my husband put the building into receivership.”

When the opportunity to put in a bid to purchase The Berkeley came up, Campbell was attracted by more than just her husband’s connection to the business. She also knew the inner workings of it from another standpoint: her mother-in-law had moved into the building in 1993. Campbell bought the building a year later.

During her career, Campbell encountered sexism, but it hasn’t held her back. One reason is she has a thick skin, while another reason is the circumstances that got her into the business world.

She graduated from law school in 1967, joined the bar a year later and practiced law

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Laureate Profile

“I think women bring a very different culture to an organization ” —DIANE CAMPBELL

until 1975, but gave that up to focus on raising her children. In 1980, Campbell’s father died, which meant the businesses he owned needed stewardship, including Maritime Photoengravers (which became Maritime Digital Colour), Maritime Graphic Arts, and an office building in downtown Halifax.

Because Campbell has been in senior positions throughout her business career, she’s managed to escape some of the sexism other women have faced, but she hasn’t been immune to it. “I was able to do things on my own, whereas not everybody would be able to do that,” says Campbell.

On boards she’s served on, when financial matters have been discussed, sometimes other board members have said inappropriate things. “There have been men who have made comments about the fact that, ‘Well, oh, the women wouldn’t understand that,’” says Campbell. “I guess I just let that roll off my back and don’t pay too much attention it.

You do hear it.”

And there have been times in business where people haven’t helped their case in trying to get trades work from Campbell.

“I’ve had the experience where people have been condescending,” she says.

“Of course, if you’re interviewing three or four different people to do some of these things, you’re obviously not going to be thinking about them when the time comes to make your decision. I have just avoided people like that. If that’s they’re attitude, then I have no intention of working with them.”

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Campbell advises women working their way up the corporate ladder to stay focused. “The next thing you have to have is a passion for what it is you’re trying to accomplish, and I think if you have that passion, I think other people feel it and it gives them a motivation to really help you to succeed,” she says.

Campbell is pleased sexist attitudes seem less prevalent in the local business scene but thinks it’s important that people be educated about the different skills women bring to the table.

“I think women bring a very different culture to an organization,” she says.

“I’m not quite sure how to say it, maybe a kinder [element]. I think they bring a little bit of a different sense to an organization. I think they’re better team players in many cases and that may seem like an odd thing to say, but I think in many cases that men are looking at how they’re going to get to the top of the ladder, they may not be so interested in the relationships that they’re developing within the organization as women are.”

Campbell points to The Berkeley as an example, an operation that employs mostly female workers, including in the executive positions. “I just find in our organization we care about one another, we care about how people are being looked after, both financially and emotionally inside our organization.

That may be something men are not so attuned to,” she says.

R. DIANE CAMPBELL Diane Campbell is President and CEO of Berkeley Holdings Limited, operator of four retirement residences in Halifax.

Campbell was born and raised in Halifax.

She graduated from Acadia University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and received her Bachelor of Law Degree from Dalhousie University.

Campbell was admitted to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1968 and practiced law with Daley Black Moreira & Piercey for several years. She served as co-chair of the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s door-to-door campaign as well as serving on many boards, including the Canadian Cancer Society (NS Division), Halifax Herald Limited, NS Business Capital Corporation, Discovery Centre, Neptune Theatre, Victoria General Hospital Board of Commissioners, Canadian Stroke Network and Canadiana Fund. She was the founding chair of the Victoria General Hospital Foundation.

She has also served on the Capital Campaign Committees for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Neptune Theatre, and Mount Saint Vincent University’s

continued on page 17

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We celebrate you, Diane!

We are honoured that our very own Diane Campbell has been inducted into the JA Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame.

Your leadership, vision, and drive are an inspiration to all of us here at The Berkeley as well as the broader Nova Scotian business community.

From your entire team, Congratulations!

Love Where You Live

Laureate Profile “It is such a great honour to be inducted into the JA Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame. I feel privileged to join the ranks of the esteemed business people previously inducted, and to be considered a role model for youth who demonstrate entrepreneurial interest and leadership. As a business woman, I am delighted to be named a laureate and it is my hope that my induction will pave the way for other Nova Scotian women to earn this recognition.”

continued from page 15 Project TWENTY12. Campbell is past chair of the Board of Trustees and former member of the Board of Management, Finance and Property Maintenance Committees of First Baptist Church Halifax, the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation and Medical Dean’s Advisory Board.

Campbell served as vice-chair of the Discovery Centre Rediscover Campaign Cabinet and currently serves on the Board of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia.

She and her husband, Wesley Campbell, have two children and four grandchildren. In 2013 Campbell was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

—DIANE CAMPBELL

We believe in the power of experiences

At NSBI, we sell Nova Scotia to the world.

And we’re proud to showcase the world of opportunity to Nova Scotia youth.

Congratulations to our Dr. Paw Team of students who worked with us throughout the year from the Junior Achievement Company Program!

L-R Ethan Johnston (VP Production), Laurel Broten (President and CEO, NSBI), Eric Zhang (VP Finance), Alice Song (President), Michael Baldrige (VP Digital /VP HR) *Missing from photo is Hala Abu Nahia (VP Sales and Marketing) and Tatyana Kovtun (VP Social Media)

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Congratulations to Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia from the Saint Mary’s University Entrepreneurship Centre

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Laureate Profile

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME STU RATH COMBINES BUSINESS SAVVY, GOOD TIMING, AND A BIT OF LUCK

BY RICHARD WOODBURY Of all the business investments Stu Rath, 75, has made in his storied business career, one of the ones that had the greatest return also happened to be the one where he did the least due diligence.

It was 2006 and some friends of his who were involved in the harness racing industry asked him if he wanted to go to Lexington, Kentucky, to buy a horse. Six people had each committed to spending $10,000 to chip in and buy a race horse, but one person dropped out. Did Rath want in? “You don’t often make money in the horse-racing business,” says Rath. This investment proved to be the exception.

His $10,000 investment went into a horse who would eventually win 20 of 21 career starts, set four world records (including the fastest mile in the history of the sport), and earn more than $3.2 million in winnings during his racing career. In the only race he lost, he finished second. The horse’s name was Somebeachsomewhere.

“The best stallion ever,” says Rath, but he’s quick to point out he didn’t have anything to do with selecting Somebeachsomewhere.

Rath travelled around and saw some of the races Somebeachsomewhere competed in, relishing in Somebeachsomewhere’s success like sports fans do when their teams win the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl. “He captured the [hearts of] race fans

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right across North America,” Rath says. “He was a hero.”

After his racing career finished, Somebeachsomewhere became a breeding stallion. Not surprisingly, his good genes were highly sought after, and he sired horses with combined winnings of more than $84 million, before he died in early 2018.

The story of Somebeachsomewhere reveals another lesson in business. “That was pure luck,” Rath says. While Rath’s success can be summed up to hard work and partnering with good people, luck helps. “I got in some of the right places at the right time,” he says.

Consider Rath’s unlikely entry into the business world. He attended a one-room schoolhouse until Grade 10 and because he didn’t study any foreign languages in school, he didn’t qualify for entry to university, so he took a job working for the Bank of Montreal in 1960. He began as a teller and progressed to more senior positions within the bank, including being a branch manager. (He also took some correspondence courses over the years.)

While working for the bank, some of Rath’s clients were cable companies and this gave him a good understanding of how the business worked. Word got around that the cable company that served Truro was up for sale.

STU RATH Stu Rath was born and grew up on his family farm in Camden, outside Truro.

Although working long hours on the farm instilled in him a strong work ethic, Stu knew farming wasn’t for him. After high school, he started working at the Bank of Montreal. This began a 16-year climb up the bank’s ranks which included 10 moves. While in the bank he decided he wanted to own his own business and in 1976 he purchased Eastern Cablevision in Truro. This was the beginning of a very successful business career.

In 1985, Stu partnered with John Bragg to purchase controlling interest in Halifax Cable. The sale of all of his cable interests in 1995, to his partner John Bragg, allowed Stu to further invest in several other businesses including an airport environmental services company, a wholesale and office supply company, and an ice company.

Stu believes that with success in business you have a responsibility to give back to your community. To that end, he has supported the Rath Eastlink continued on page 23

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Laureate Profile

After 16 years of working for the bank, Rath took a risk when he decided he’d give up working for the bank and bought the cable business in 1976.

“I took a lot of heat from my family, my late wife’s family, and even bankers,” says Rath. “They were saying, ‘You’ve got a great career here. Why do you want to do that?’

I risked everything to get it, borrowing money from my father and brother, and selling the house and so on. It was a gamble and I wanted to do it.” Adding to the risk was he and his wife had two children, who were eight and 10 at the time.

22 JABHoF

The family had most recently been living in Sackville and to finance the purchase of the business, they sold their house. With Eastern Cablevision, the family of four lived above the business in Truro. “It was a humbling start,” says Rath.

He’d always wanted to go into business for himself, and so he was now acting on that desire. While working for the bank, he saw the challenges business people faced, but he also saw the rewards their success brought them and wanted a piece of that.

While some business successes come after years of steady growth, Rath’s was

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Laureate Profile

continued from page 21 Community Centre, Rotary House, and the Colchester Hospital. Most recently, recognizing the value of education in developing entrepreneurs, he made contributions to Acadia, Dalhousie Truro Campus and NSCC. Stu’s leadership ability is evidenced by his successful career in cable television.

His experience on various boards, most recently NSBI, has enabled Stu to provide advice to allow aspiring entrepreneurs to flourish. He has also been an Angel Investor to a number of start-up companies, sharing his experience and expertise.

almost immediate. “My second full year in business, my profit was more than we had paid for it, so it took off very quickly,” he says. The timing for Rath’s entry into the business world was impeccable. The business also expanded into communities in Colchester and Cumberland counties.

In 1985, Rath partnered with John Bragg to purchase a controlling interest in Halifax Cablevision. This move wasn’t part of a grand plan. Rather, it was simply an opportunity that came up and he jumped on it. Rath partnered with Bragg because the purchase wasn’t something he could pull off on his own, so he approached the businessman that he knew and respected to see if he wanted in on the deal. Ten years later, Rath sold his stake to Bragg. Today, Halifax Cablevision is Eastlink.

One of the reasons Rath is pleased with his Hall of Fame induction is that he gets

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to join Bragg, who was inducted in the inaugural class in 1993. “I’m proud of that,” says Rath.

While Rath will tell you he’s retired, that isn’t exactly true. He’s the part owner of a New Holland Agriculture dealership, which sells farm equipment like tractors and sprayers. He also serves in an advisory capacity for some car dealerships his son owns and is involved with an ice-making company. “I still do a lot of stuff and I don’t consider it work,” he says. “I’ve done it all my life.” Rath says he’d like to spend more time at a place he has in Florida, and vows to do so.

These days, a lot of his time is spent mentoring younger people. The message he has for them is that being in business is no cake walk, you must work hard and be willing to take on risk.

Stu still resides in Truro and when teased about going to work every morning to his retirement office, he replies that it doesn’t feel like work to him. He enjoys making deals and helping others.

JABHoF 23

CONGRATULATIONS ROB ON YOUR INDUCTION INTO THE NOVA SCOTIA BUSINESS HALL OF FAME! FROM ALL OF US AT STEELE AUTO GROUP

VISIT US ONLINE AT: WWW.STEELEAUTO.COM

CONGRATULATIONS INDUCTION INTO ROB THE NOVA SCOTIA ON YOUR BUSINESS HALL OF FAME...

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WWW.NEWCAP.CA 24

Laureate Profile

BUILDING ON A LEGACY WITH THE LESSONS HE LEARNED AT HIS FATHER’S SIDE, ROB STEELE CREATES HIS OWN BUSINESS EMPIRE

BY RICHARD WOODBURY

It was early in Rob Steele’s business career when he learned something that has stuck with him to this day. It was the mid 1980s and Steele was in Edmonton with his father, Harry Steele, and his father’s accountant. The elder Steele was looking at buying a radio station and was in town to potentially make a deal. While there, the elder Steele and his accountant discussed the value of the business and what the possible price would be. The younger Steele watched this conversation unfold.

When the meeting with the seller took place, Rob Steele was also there. As the negotiations unfolded, the seller named his price, which was significantly higher than the ceiling value the accountant had come up with for his client to pay. “The delta between what his highest point was and what the ask was, was so high that I kind of automatically assumed, ‘Wow, there’s no deal here,’” says Rob Steele.

While the seller budged on his asking price, it was still a lot more than Harry Steele was looking to pay, but in a move that surprised his son, he agreed.

Afterwards, Rob Steele asked his father why he made the deal. Matter-of-factly, he told his son, “If you listen to your accountant, you’ll never do a deal.”

“I’ve done a lot of deals since and the reality is, that is true … Ultimately, you have to make the call yourself,” says Rob Steele, who turns 57 in June. He adds: “I don’t mean to denigrate accountants at all. Quite frankly, I surround myself with a battery of accountants … I like getting advice and insight from a lot of people to help me process a decision.”

Rob Steele says it’s important for entrepreneurs to get input as others will see things that you don’t. There will also be times where you see value and others don’t, meaning you might have to pull the trigger.

Steele got his start in business with the publication Auto Trader, which featured classified ads for vehicles for sale. He says he’s not mechanically inclined and has always been drawn to cars because of their look; he views them as art. Steele loved the publication and would pick it up wherever his travels took him.

When he was 26, he contacted the owner of Auto Trader about obtaining the franchise rights for Atlantic Canada.

Somebody already had them, but that didn’t stop him.

The fact someone had the rights showed Steele this was something worth pursuing, so in a move that

ROB STEELE Born in Halifax, and raised in Newfoundland & Labrador where his family’s roots are, Rob Steele graduated from Memorial University in St. John’s in 1983 with a BA degree.

He began his entrepreneurial career in auto-related industries and in 1990, divested of his interest in the local franchise of Auto Trader magazines and used the proceeds to purchase the first auto dealership. He proceeded then to build the Steele Auto Group, based in Nova Scotia, into the largest and most diversified auto group in Atlantic Canada.

The Steele Auto Group currently has 900 employees, and 22 dealerships in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador, representing 22 brands. The Steele Auto Group is recognized as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies.

While building the Auto Group, Steele also joined the Board of Directors of Newfoundland Capital Corporation (TSX-NCC.a, NCC.b) in 1997. In 2001, the Board asked Steele to take a leadership role at NCC were he has been President and CEO since that time. He moved to streamline the company’s investments to focus on the radio business. NCC had acquired its first radio station in 1986 in Charlottetown, and by continued on page 26

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JABHoF 25

Laureate Profile continued from page 25 1999, had grown to 14 licences. Under Rob’s leadership, the company became branded as Newcap Radio and as of 2016, operates 95 radio licences across Canada, including the largest acquisition in its history in 2014 with the purchase of five radio stations in two of Canada’s largest markets, Vancouver and Toronto.

Newcap is now the largest pure-play radio company in Canada with almost 1,000 employees and is the second largest radio company in terms of broadcast licences.

Newcap reaches millions of listeners each week through a variety of formats (from hip hop to country to classic rock) and is a recognized industry leader in radio programming, sales and networking. Newcap has 80 FM and 15 AM licences spanning coast to coast, with concentrations in Alberta and Newfoundland & Labrador. In May 2016, Rob was inducted into the Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame in Toronto, during Canada Music Week festivities, in recognition of his 18 years as a “leader and pacesetter” in the industry.

Steele currently sits on the boards of Stingray Digital, Montreal, and Atlantic Signature Mortgage, Halifax. Steele was also past co-chair of the ECMA Event Committee and continues to be involved with the ECMA’s in an advisory capacity.

In addition, he also serves as a director of the Halifax Mooseheads Hockey Club, affiliates of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

Steele is a strong supporter of giving back to the communities where we do business, and both Newcap Radio and the Steele Auto Group are very actively involved in many charitable causes.

Steele is personally active in a number of charitable causes including the Alzheimer’s Society, the Mental Health Foundation, Family SOS, Daffodil House, Feed Nova Scotia and the Arthritis Society. He was named Outstanding Individual Philanthropist of the Year in 2014 by the Nova Scotia Association of Fundraising Professionals for the extent of his involvement in and support of various community efforts.

26 JABHoF

displayed his tenacity, he got in touch with the rightsholder. “I certainly didn’t see it as a dead end,” says Steele. Steele asked if the rightsholder was interested in taking on a partner. At that point, the business was only up and running in Nova Scotia, so Steele set up the operations in Newfoundland.

Steele’s next big move saw him go from cars on paper to ones in real life. In 1990, he sold his stake in Auto Trader and used the money to buy a car dealership. Steele Auto Group has grown to 36 dealerships in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick, employing some 1,600 people. Steele Auto is the business his name is most closely aligned with, but it’s not the only business for which he has a major hands-on role.

In 1997, he joined the board of directors of the Newfoundland Capital Corporation (Newcap), a publicly-traded company that his father started. In 2001, he was asked to serve as president and CEO, and still sits in that capacity.

Under his guidance, the company shifted its focus to the radio business and divested itself of its other interests, a diverse portfolio that included container terminals, transportation businesses, and publishers. When Steele became president and CEO, the company had 14 radio licences. Today, it has more than 100, and employs around 900 people.

Asked if there’s any overlap between radio and cars, Steele says not really, other than that radio is an effective medium to promote car dealerships.

One obvious way the businesses differ is in their corporate structures: one public, one private.

Steele prefers running a private business. “You’re free to do what you want, you’re not at the whim of the market or investors, other than the bank, the bank is your partner,” he says.

“To have the public as your partner can be distracting. Running a business and having to answer to shareholders can sometimes be, I think, unproductive.”

Steele is a busy guy, but he likes taking the time to speak with business students.

When he was a student, he loved hearing from guest speakers when their talks had a career focus to them because it helped give Steele insight into what he wanted to do after his career. The speakers that came in without a prepared speech left an impression on Steele. “I always loved the authenticity of somebody free flowing,” he says.

When Steele speaks with students, he does so without notes. He loves taking questions. He says the best question he’s received is about the importance of networking. “It’s all about making contacts and taking advantage of opportunities,” says Steele.

“The important thing with networking is it’s not a one-way thing, if you’re willing to network and take advantage of an opportunity, you also have to throw something back in the pot. It’s a reciprocal thing.”

Steele says being inducted into the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame means a lot to him. He’s also one of the few people inducted who has a familial connection to other inductees. Steele’s father was inducted in 1998. “It’s a nice accolade,” he says.

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Chairmans’ Circle

Acadian Seaplants JP & Louis Deveau

Eastlink John Bragg

Rogers Communications Troy Harnish

Aurora Savior Joseph

Gateway Insurance Group Keith Dexter

Saint Mary’s University Robert Summerby-Murray

Bell Canada Glen LeBlanc

Halifax Grammer School Steven Laffoley

Stewart McKelvey Lydia Bugden

CCL Steve Parker

KPMG Douglas Reid

Supplement King Rodger King

Charm Diamond Centers Richard Calder

MacPhee Ford Al MacPhee

The Shaw Group Limited Dean Robertson

Clearwater Fine Foods Inc. Colin MacDonald

Micco Companies Limited Mickey MacDonald

Wilsons Fuel Co. Limited Ian Wilson

Dalhousie University Richard Florizone

O’Regan’s Automotive Group Sean O’Regan

WM Fares Wadih Fares

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JABHoF 27

Past Laureate Portraits 1993 Frank Sobey

1993 Harvey Webber

1993 John Bragg

1993 Susan Oland

1994 Harvey Doane

1994 Irene D’Entremont

1994 John Jodrey

1994 L.E. Shaw

1995 Donald McInnes

1995 Ernest & Delia Edwards

1995 James MacConnell

1995 Norman Newman

1995 William Henry Dennis

1996 Izaak Walton Killam

1996 Ron Joyce

1996 Sir Graham Day

1997 Joseph P. Shannon

1997 Purdy Crawford

1997 Sir Samuel Cunard

1998 Cyrus Eaton

1998 Harry Steele

1998 Kenneth C. Rowe

1999 Fred Manning

1999 Alfred Smithers

1999 John Risley

2000 Colonel Sidney C. Oland

2000 John Craig

2000 William, Donald & David Sobey

2001 Frank Manning Covert

2001 Hector Jacques

2001 Laurie Stevens

2002 Allan C. Shaw

2002 John Scrymgeour

2002 Roy A. Jodrey

2003 Alexander Keith

2003 Hugh Erskine

28 JABHoF

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2003 Irving Schwartz

2004 Charles V. Keating

2004 F. Thomas Stanfield

2004 John W. Lindsay Sr.

2005 Graham W. Dennis

2005 J. William E. Mingo

2005 R.B. Cameron

2006 D. Andrew Eisenhauer

2006 Enos Collins

2006 Rob Dexter

2007 Honourable William A. Black

2007 Jim & Simon Spatz

2007 Steve B. Parker

2008 Bernardin Comeau

2008 David & G. Peter Wilson

2008 Wadih Fares

2009 Al MacPhee

2009 Joseph Zatzman

2009 Ralph Medjuck

2010 Anette Vershuren

2010 Bruce Murray

2010 J. William (Bill) Ritchie

2011 Richard & Sharon Calder

2011 Robert (Bob) Kelly

2011 Rose Schwartz

2012 Armour (Ben) McCrea

2012 C.J. & W.O. (Bill) Morrow

2012 Chief Terrance Paul

2013 Joe Randall

2013 Stephen Smith

2013 Willett J. & Hugh O. Mills

2014 Henry Demone

2014 Robert Risley

2014 Stephen & Paul O’Regan

2015 Colin MacDonald

2015 JP and Louis Deveau

2015 Michael Duck

2016 David Read

2016 George Caines, QC

2016 Pete Luckett

2017 Michael Donovan

2018 Stu Rath

2018 Diane Campbell

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2017 Chris Huskilson

2017 Jim Eisenhauer

2018 Rob Steele

JABHoF 29

It takes all kinds FOUR DISTINCT CATEGORIES OF LAUREATES ARE RECOGNIZED IN HALL OF FAME HONOUR ROLL

BY KEN PARTRIDGE Ask someone to describe the people that should be recognized in a business hall of fame. Odds are what you’ll get is a stereotype of the successful entrepreneur.

A single person who had a vision for their business, likely started things from scratch, and built it into a hugely successful company that now employs many of their fellow citizens.

That’s a good start. There are several examples of this type of business person who deserve recognition for their contributions. But limiting hall of fame inductions to one type of business story would ignore all the other paths to success that are worthy of recognition.

That’s why Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame organizers decided early on to also recognize not just the entrepreneur, but also the family businesses, the CEOs, and the trusted advisors that all play roles in business success.

“They’re all important, all unique,” says Ian Wilson, president of Wilson Fuel Co. Limited, “but they’re all similar, too. I see them all as builders, a continuum that’s needed for overall success.”

Wilson’s company is an excellent example of the strong tradition of family enterprise in Atlantic Canada. The company has passed into the hands of successive generations and maintains its position as a leader in its field.

“A family business brings with it a lot of unique dynamics,” Wilson says. It used to be the case the business was handed down from father to eldest son, not unlike the feudal system, Wilson points out. Things have evolved though. “Now you have to sort out ownership and management, who is best suited to each role, and whether you need to bring in skills from outside the family to take things to the next level,” Wilson adds.

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Those outside skills are where the CEO class of inductees shines. They bring a wider scope of experience to help a business capitalize on its strengths.

“A CEO is critical to any business,” says George Caines, a partner with Stewart McKelvey and a Business Hall of Fame inductee. “Not every entrepreneur is cut out to be a CEO. It takes a certain type of person to come in and be able to lift a company to a new level.”

Caines is an example of the Trusted Advisor category. He has assisted and mentored several generations of businesses during his legal career. However, he sees his role as being just another member of the team and not a determining factor in the company’s success. “I’ve added value,” Caines says, “by bringing experience from outside the company and different contexts, but in every case the people I worked with would have been successful with or without me.”

Wilson sees the role of the trusted advisor being much more crucial to the end result. The role is unique, since they’re often the only ones willing to say what leaders need to hear. “Trusted advisors bring different skill sets and are willing to speak truth to power,” Wilson says.

That dose of reality can be critical to any entrepreneur, says Irene d’Entremont, president of Information Management Inc. and one of the earliest inductees.

Sometimes an entrepreneur can be too close to see the bigger picture.

“It’s a big difference for an entrepreneur, who comes in and starts a business with their own money and hard work,” d’Entremont says. “Other employees can resign, but the owner can’t just leave. Once you start your company, you’re it. You can’t walk away. But you can’t do it all alone either. That’s why you need all four types recognized in the Hall of Fame.”

“They’re all important, all unique, but they’re all similar, too. I see them all as builders, a continuum that’s needed for overall success.”

—IAN WILSON, President, Wilson Fuel Co. Limited

JABHoF 31

From T-shirts to trucks HOW JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT PREPARED BRANDON MOAK FOR MANAGING A HIGH-TECH START-UP

BY CHRIS MUISE When Brandon Moak was a high-school senior participating in the Junior Achievement Company Program in 2012–13, he ran a successful T-shirt tie-dying enterprise. Today, he’s using the skills he learned to run a tech start-up building autonomous trucks to ship goods across America.

“We’re making self-driving trucks,” says the 22-year-old chief technical officer and co-founder of Embark Trucking. “That in itself is a pretty ambitious goal. I guess what’s unique to Embark is that we’re constraining the self-driving problem in a way that nobody else is. We’re targeting the long-haul portion of the industry.”

It’s a multi-step process. “You need to build a lot of vehicles, so you can test and prove your technology at scale, before you can confidently remove the driver from the seat,” says Brandon, who now lives in San Francisco. He’s busy getting his trucks ready to test whether they can handle America’s Interstate 10 highway.

“What we’ve been working on recently is scaling up our testing operations. We’re signing up real companies, so we can actually move their freight while we test the technology.”

Embark is on the cutting edge of the autonomous vehicle industry, in part because the company has chosen to focus exclusively on long-haul freight operations.

“There’s a major driver-shortage problem,” Brandon says.

“They’re about a couple hundred thousand drivers short in the longhaul freight industry.” He adds that most truckers on the road today are 50 or older, and on the verge of aging out of the profession.

While he hopes to gain long-haul business, he says there will still be lots of short-haul work for human drivers. “City driving is really hard for autonomous vehicles,” he explains. “That’s going to create more local trucking jobs, because people still need to do the pick-up, the drop-off. Frankly, I think these are more attractive jobs as well, in that you get to sleep in your own bed at night after a delivery.”

Not surprisingly to JA alum, Brandon says that managing his JA company, Everybody Dyes, helped prepare him for managing something as complex as the deployment of a fleet of autonomous vehicles.

“It gives you at least a little bit of a basis for understanding what you’re getting into,” says Brandon. “One thing that definitely holds true for any business is being aware of what’s achievable and what’s not. We had a lot of ideas around cool, interesting products that we could build, but I think the one thing we got right was picking something that we knew we could do. We knew we could build tie-dye T-shirts, we could figure out the supply chains, and figure out how to sell it.”

32 JABHoF

That same mentality applies to rolling out state-of-the-art technology still in its infancy like autonomous vehicles, according to Brandon. “We think we have a very quick path to market by constraining the problems, so we can see the first realistic employment of our technology in the next five to 10 years, rather than 10 to 20 years,” he says.

As he was president of Everybody Dyes, JA also prepared Brandon to take on the role of a decision-maker in business. That experience is invaluable today, managing a staff of 30 employees with many different ideas in which directions to take the company.

“I can’t remember exactly what was going on, but there was some disagreement within the group about some direction that we were going to take. I had to focus everybody in and make a final decision,” says Brandon. “It’s the first-time opportunity to realize what it takes to try and lead a small group of people and convince them that this is the direction that we should be going.”

“Those skills I attribute directly to Junior Achievement,” says his father, Peter Moak. “I was surprised, actually, when he came home and said, ‘I joined Junior Achievement at school,’” he says. “Because I hadn’t actually seen that in him. He was a very independent person, yes, but to lead the group? I was pleasantly surprised to see that.”

Peter, a father of four who builds 3-D training software with his wife, is a strong proponent of teaching high-schoolers practical life skills missing in their curriculum. He says that JA is an excellent source for those kinds of first-hand life experiences.

“Lo and behold, Junior Achievement has brought that across,” says Peter. “If presented the opportunity to join JA, there is no downside. It’s a lot of fun, they’re learning life skills, and you learn life interactions. Regardless of what you’re going to do, those skills are really important.”

Even though Brandon understands that his business is a complex one, he now understands that the skills to run any business (be it selling t-shirts or developing robot trucks) are invaluable and credits JA with giving him his first taste of that life.

“I guess JA was a lot of firsts in showing me the skills necessary and putting me through the paces of what it would actually take to lead a group to build something that’s really cool,” says Brandon. “I deeply respect anybody that tries to build their own business. Although the technology that we’re trying to build is really hard, that’s only half the problem. Many struggles come from just trying to build a business at all.”

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Looking back on 50 years PAST LAUREATE IRENE D’ENTREMONT RECALLS THE EARLY DAYS OF THE HALL OF FAME AND JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT

BY KEN PARTRIDGE Attendees of the 2018 Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame Gala will experience an entire evening of celebration in the heart of Halifax’s downtown, surrounded by hundreds of the city’s top business people as they honour the latest inductees. It’s a far cry from the 30-minute luncheon at Saint Mary’s University that launched the whole thing.

Irene d’Entremont was there for that first event in 1993 and inducted a year later. She has seen how far the Hall has come over the past 25 years and the impact it has had on the business community and on Junior Achievement.

“When the Hall of Fame was first thought of,” she says, “it was to recognize people who were doing great things for the province. That original thought is exactly what the Hall has become. All the different laureates we have are a great testament to what the Hall has evolved into.”

Born and raised in Pubnico, d’Entremont is an excellent example of the laureates to whom she refers. She made her mark in the Yarmouth area and has run a variety of businesses across several sectors, including sales and service, R&D, and manufacturing. She is currently president of ITG Information Management Inc., consulting in business management. Her résumé includes MIT Electronics Inc., Women’s Up-To-Date Shop Inc., Wesmar Electronics Canada Limited, Tourism Nova Scotia, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Nova Scotia, and the Yarmouth Airport board of directors.

She gives a lot of credit for getting the concept of the Hall of Fame rolling to Harvey Webber, a Cape Breton businessman who was among the first four people inducted into the Hall. Webber was a tireless fighter for all things local, being one of the founding forces behind Atlantic Canada Plus, this region’s first major attempt at getting residents to choose locally-made products.

“Harvey was key to the whole thing,” d’Entremont says. “He was a driving force, along with the Chamber of Commerce.”

Junior Achievement came on board in those early days, seeing the natural alignment with its programs and the goals of the Hall. “Junior Achievement is the epitome of what

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youth need to hear and learn about business. I definitely identify JA with what the Hall of Fame is supposed to inspire,” d’Entremont says.

The Hall now honours almost 90 business leaders and has become the single most important fundraising event for Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia. Over that same time, the Nova Scotia charter has become recognized as one of the most active and innovative JA’s in the country. d’Entremont says the Hall of Fame event has become more sophisticated every year.

JABHoF 33

Celebrate what matters On behalf of our team at Deloitte, congratulations to this year’s Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame Laureates: Stu Rath, R. Diane Campbell, and Rob Steele. We thank you for your continued support and development of our community.

www.deloitte.com

Congratulations to the Laureates and nominees for the 2018 Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame. You exemplify growth, courage, success and leadership that make Nova Scotians proud.

The Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation is committed to offering a gaming industry Nova Scotians are proud of and enjoy. We do this by making decisions based on evidence, putting social responsibility first and funding what matters to Nova Scotians.

Credit unions are more than sponsors. We’re trusted community partners.

We’re proud to partner with young entrepreneurs as the Presenting Sponsor for the Nova Scotia Business Hall of Fame.

Contact your local credit union to learn more.

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