June 2007

Thanks for Coming Out

The sale of The Bay to an American company is making many Canadian retailers rethink why they're in business >

The List - Alberta's Most Respected Corporations 2007

The readers have spoken. The companies below represent the three most often cited by respondents as worthy of respect. The leaders in their respective categories are listed in bold type >

A Leading Question

I don’t know whether leadership can be taught, but I’m willing to spend a week in the mountains to find out >

The Standouts

Aretha Franklin demanded it. Rodney Dangerfield couldn’t beg, borrow or steal it. The rest of us try to earn respect the old-fashioned way, by paying our bills, standing up for the occasional principle and just plain doing the right thing. But it can’t be bought or sold >

The Pay-Off

Excessive compensation often points to bad stock performance and even worse corporate governance >

The Joy of Cooking for a Living

Judy Wood’s culinary career started in her mother’s Montreal kitchen >

Social Beacon

Eric Newell didn’t invent corporate social responsibility, but the company he ran is arguably its greatest Alberta exemplar >

Our Man in Hokkaido

When he moved to Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands, in 1991, Paul Nikel quickly realized Japan is far from the high-tech, super-efficient country it is reputed to be >

Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Irene Lewis

It’s not an exaggeration to say Irene Lewis has transformed SAIT Polytechnic >

Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Clive Beddoe

“We’re not judged when things go well, we’re judged when things go badly,” says Clive Beddoe when talking about matters that are out of his control, such as inclement weather and mechanical failures >

Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Art Price

Art Price looked like an opportunist in 1995 when he ditched a 22-year career in the oil and gas business, culminating in the CEO suite at Husky Oil Ltd., to helm an upstart Internet service company called Axia Netmedia Corporation >

Liquidation Nation

With the soaring price of oil, the loss of Imperial Oil’s head office and the rise of a prime minister with no discernible allegiance to Toronto (other than to the Leafs, oddly enough), Ontario has known hard times lately >

Learning to Love Carbon Taxes

You are worried about the climate risks from carbon emissions. But you live in Alberta or some other fossil fuel-rich region. So naturally you despise carbon taxes, without even five seconds of thought >

June 2007

Gone Fission

In 2001, Heather Douglas and a small team of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited officials made the rounds to several large oil companies in hopes of selling nuclear energy to fuel Alberta’s oilsands projects >

Friends in Far Places

Allan Short is so accustomed to keeping different time zones in his head simultaneously that he has no problem, even over the phone early on a Tuesday morning from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in eastern Russia, telling you what time it is in Calgary >

A Room With a View

One good thing to come out of the Enron scandal is a dozen or so Herman Miller designer chairs that sit in the Calgary office of Wax Partnership Incorporated >

All Work and No Play

Albertans work long hours and often skip their vacations. Where do you draw the line between a good work ethic and an unhealthy, counterproductive obsession? >

No Place for Nerds

While we were busy toasting the energy boom, another could-be big technology slipped away to Silicon Valley. Will the brain drain ever be staunched?  >

House Training

Offering in-house training is just one way to make sure that the money you spend on professional development meets your company’s needs. A look at what companies across Alberta are doing >

Cross-Border Blues

After all the new security measures and trade-facilitating counter-measures, shipping goods to the United States is tougher than ever. And guess who pays  >

Flashback: Still Respected After All These Years

When Alberta Venture began the annual Most Respected Corporations program in 2001, some familiar names topped the survey results. Many of the companies cited, such as Syncrude and PCL Construction Group, remain cornerstones of the provincial economy >

Green Beacons

More and more, organizations are judged for their sensitivity to the environment. These companies earned respect for respecting the Earth >