Baird-Brenneman
Rick George
Cave-Edgar
Elford-Hudema
Hughes-Levant
Liepert-March
McNaughton-Prentice
Rice-Tertzekian
Thomas-Wilson |
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Helen Rice
Artsy Alderman
When Grande Prairie was picked to host the 2009 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards, Helen Rice, alderman for nearly three decades, volunteered to chair the organizing committee, shuffling the job into a mix of roles including director of the city’s downtown association and vice-president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (for cities smaller than 500,000). While she won’t say that this June’s week-long Iskoteo Arts Festival was her idea, she will admit that her involvement in staging it as the cultural component of the city’s 1995 Canada Winter Games has contributed to the festival’s revival. Either way, Rice is just happy to showcase the resource-based city’s overlooked arts and culture. “If you want to attract professionals, you have to have a thriving arts community,” says Rice. “It really drives economic development.”
BUSINESS
Jim Shaw
Telecom Magnate
With the passing of Rogers Communications namesake Ted Rogers, Shaw Communications Inc. vice-chair and CEO Jim Shaw has assumed the mantle of Canada’s senior cable guy. Taking a leaf out of Rogers’ book, he’s also got designs on the wireless industry, having secured licences covering Alberta and B.C. in last year’s federal auction of wireless spectrum. Lately, too, he’s been leading the charge against the TV networks’ attempt to charge subscriber fees. Stay tuned.
PHILANTHROPY
Prem and Saroj Singhmar
Culture Donors
After leaving India and coming to Canada in 1985, the Singhmars have dabbled in everything from chicken farming to real estate investing to commercial property development. Last October, the former eye surgeon and his wife, residents of Sherwood Park, gave Edmonton a jolt of culture in the form of $1.2 million for the Art Gallery of Alberta’s education centre, renamed the Singhmar Centre for Art Education. In 2006, their donation of $1.5 million to the University of Alberta established the Chair in Classical Indian Polity and Society.
ASSOCIATION
Quincy Smith
Tourism’s Hope
In November 2008, Quincy Smith, who has worked in the law field for over 35 years, was chosen as chair of Travel Alberta. As such, he oversaw Travel Alberta’s transition this past spring from a division of the Tourism, Parks and Recreation ministry to an autonomous corporation, continuing to market Alberta throughout the province, across the nation and around the world. Won’t you stay just a little bit longer?
BUSINESS
Stephen Snyder
Corporate Survivor
Stephen Snyder stood up to repeated challenges from TransAlta Corporation’s then-largest shareholder, Luminus Management LLC, which last year wanted the electrical utility to engage in many of the highly leveraged tactics that brought down Wall Street, and won. The Canadian way of running companies that this president and CEO represents isn’t looking so bad these days.
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Ed Stelmach
Alberta Premier
While his low public profile would seem to indicate Ed Stelmach is repudiating his predecessor’s cult of personality and letting his ministers do the heavy lifting on major government files (health restructuring, resource royalties, the budget), political observers insist the opposite is true. This cabinet is as tight as they come, and Stelmach is in fact pulling all the strings.
BUSINESS
Peter Tertzakian
Energy Guru
The End of Energy Obesity, the second book by Peter Tertzakian, coming out this month, posits that our guzzling of fossil fuels (the subject of his first book, 2006’s A Thousand Barrels a Second) will exert the same effect on the economy as a steady diet of burgers and fries would on the body. By failing to live lean, we’ve relinquished control of our own well-being, not to mention that of the environment, placing both at the mercy of the markets, argues the Calgary-based author and chief energy economist at ARC Financial Corporation. But like any good diet book, this one doesn’t rule out a happy ending, which will likely put Tertzakian back on the bestseller lists. |
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