What’s New

December 2006

On the Cover: Ross Grieve photographed by Curtis Trent

COVER STORY:
School of Ross
Our 2006 Business Person of the Year, Ross Grieve, managed to turn PCL Construction’s century-old values into a competitive advantage. By keeping work in-house and developing skills from within, the company is winning today’s war for talent

FEATURES

Best and Worst of 2006
The top 10 business stories of the year in Alberta, plus other highlights, low-lifes and miscellaneous trivia of the year gone by

Caveat Director
Sure, it’s an honour, but there are things to consider before accepting that board appointment, starting with personal liability. A report from our fall Women on Board conference

The Truth is Out There
Banking on what they see as a growing need for employee screening, a St. Albert couple have made it their business to detect lies faster than you can say “forensic psychophysiologist”

INDUSTRY REPORT: EDUCATION
Vital Statistics

Only the Smart Survive
The number of classroom spaces and programs offered by private career colleges is mushrooming. Unfortunately, the student body is not. Guess what comes next

Wanted: Global Minds
How and why post-secondary schools are scouring the world for new students

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: The best little toy store in the Great White North; The backlash against cellphones; Coming to grips with incompetence; Recruiting with travel; Way Downtown; My Best Mistake; An answer to boomer blindness; Imaginative gifts
Winners’ Circle
The Prairie Trader
Open Range
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In
Great Space

November 2006

On the Cover: Craig MacTavish, head coach of the Edmonton Oilers photographed by Curtis Trent

COVER STORY:
The Making of a Motivational Master
What Edmonton Oilers coach Craig MacTavish learned over the lockout year, and how it helped his team – and could help yours – elevate its game

FEATURES

Question Period: The Fundamentals
We asked the candidates for premier what they’d do about taxes, the dropout rate and nurturing high technology.
Last in a series

Mutual Benefits
Even small businesses are rolling out benefit plans to find and keep employees. If you’re an employer, here’s a primer on what you need – and what you can afford

Winter Without Skis
Twenty-five fun things to do in Alberta’s great outdoors this winter, none of them on a ski hill

EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION REPORT

2006 Executive Salary Survey (640Kb PDF)
Our annual poll of HR managers reveals who at head office gets paid what, on average

50 Best Paid CEOs
Ranking Alberta’s chief executives by the size of their pay packages

Skin in the Game
Everywhere but the oilpatch, it seems, stock options are on the way out. In Alberta, however, they are still the executive retention tool of choice. Here’s why we’re still loaded with options, and what lies ahead

INDUSTRY REPORT: Manufacturing & Exporting
Vital Statistics (280Kb PDF)

Flying with the Loon
How manufacturers are weathering the four-year rise in the Canadian dollar by right-sizing operations, focusing on niches and, yes, hiking prices

The Nuremburg Trial
Older and wiser after the BSE fallout, Morinville’s Champion Petfoods tried a new approach at this year’s Interzoo trade show, and it’s showing results

Seize the Deal
Interalia Inc. used a lucky break with the Sydney Opera House as a springboard into Australia. Now it’s the Calgary audio company’s No. 3 market

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: The guy behind the laughing mannequins; Business incubators make a comeback; Sexy virtual agents face off; Marketing’s next frontier: foodstuffs; Way Downtown with Mark Kolke; Foray into China pays off; Professional driving tests – at your computer
Winners’ Circle
The Prairie Trader
Open Range
Between the Lines
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In
Great Space

Shaken Trust

Last spring’s soul searching by the giant Superior Plus Income Fund capped a season of growing unease about the income trust phenomenon. The upshot: there are reasons investors should be wary of trusts, but they’re not the ones you’ve been warned about >

October 2006

On the Cover: John Gaucher

COVER STORY: Think Big
How small businesses can compete with big rivals

Getting the Picture Perfect
How a Calgary couple got their gadget into a national chain

Everybody’s Job One
Quality is not just for big firms but for small business, too

Close Encounters
How to sell – er, form relationships – like the big guys do

Hire Ground
You can compete with the four-day work week

FEATURES

Question Period: The Klein Legacy
The would-be premiers talk electricity and health care

Raymond and the Machine
A top civil servant’s descent into gambling addiction

Golden Opportunity
Why get involved in the 2010 Winter Olympics?

Shaken Trust
Lessons learned from the Superior Plus stumble

INDUSTRY REPORT: BIOTECHNOLOGY
Vital Statistics

Turning the Cash-Flow Corner
Local biotech firms are nearing the commercialization point

The Software of Life
Using computer code to pinpoint the best treatment

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: Aircraft groomers find a fountain of youth; Looking at corporate team-building; Nipping sticky fingers in the bud,; “I’ll do it all” leads to disaster; Way Downtown; are online recruiters attracting talent?; ATB Business Sentiments Index
Winners’ Circle
The Prairie Trader
Open Range
Between the Lines
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In
Great Space

Methodology and Footnotes

Eligibility Criteria
Companies eligible for the Venture100 List must be headquartered in Alberta. Public, private and Crown corporations are eligible. >

September 2006

On the Cover: The Venture 100

COVER STORY:
The Venture 100
V100 LISTS
Venture 100
The Next 100
Top Performers
Top 50 Not-for-Profits
Top 50 Employers

Behind the Venture 100
The spectacular growth of Alberta’s largest companies in 2005 was supported by some spectacular fundamentals

Methodology and Footnotes
How we compile the Venture 100

V100 FEATURES

The Golden Mile
Many of the Venture 100 hang their hats in just a handful of city blocks in downtown Calgary. A map of economic clout

Deal of the Year
Inside Precision Drilling’s trust conversion

The Board Matrix (712 Mb PDF)
Who controls Alberta’s public companies? These multiple directors hold the key

Wheeling and Dealing
What it’s like to be a CEO, really. We tag along with TransCanada’s Hal Kvisle

Made in Alberta (112 Kb PDF)
Dow Chemical puts the profit in plastic. The anatomy of a home-made product

Bright Idea
The University of Lethbridge is leading just one of hundreds of big capital projects going on around the province. But it’s a beauty

A Clean Job
What it’s like to be a Fairmont Hotels employee, really

FEATURES

Question Period: Energy
A business-related question-and-answer session with the candidates for premier. First of a three-part series

The Rancher’s Revolt
Compton Petroleum is facing a new opponent in its bid to drill an exploratory gas well in the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies, some of Alberta’s oldest and most respected ranching families

The Emerald Awards
The 2006 Emerald Awards winners have used their ingenuity and creativity to crusade, persuade and campaign for cleaner communities

No One Left to Hire
Alberta’s becoming a wasteland for low-skilled jobs. Workers are few and far between and the service sector is hit the hardest

The Harder They Come
Out of tragedy was born a better, stronger and more durable office workstation. If only someone would buy it

Give Me Shelter
Not many know about it, but employers are legally bound to help sufferers of mental illness stay on the job in a crisis. In today’s stressed-out workplaces, the issue is coming to the fore

Remaking Drayton
Montreal architect Avi Friedman thinks he can save small-town downtowns from losing their lifeblood to big cities and big boxes. But do the merchants of Drayton Valley want to be saved?

INDUSTRY REPORT: CONSTRUCTION

The Reconstruction of Churchill Corp
In 2005 Norm Rokosh took the helm of a diversified construction company that was losing money in the midst of an oilsands boom. How he and others put Churchill Corporation back in the black

The View from Up Here
Calgary’s supercharged office market is begging for innovative solutions, and fast, but in the meantime contractors are dealing with broken budgets, blown schedules and costly overruns

Builder, Operator and Financier
The three P’s of the public-private partnership are catching on in Alberta. But what do builders of infrastructure need to do to play in this new game?

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: Making a clean sweep of a sad situation; Where to put your cash where it will do the most good; Learning when to say no; The fields are alive with corporate logos; Old sports cars are money in the bank; Coming soon to the small screen: Life on The Rig
Winners’ Circle
The Prairie Trader
Great Space
Open Range
Between the Lines
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In

To the Letter

Each issue, Alberta Venture will use this space to publish your thoughts. The author of a letter that has caught our interest will receive a book from our business library. Alberta Venture reserves the right to edit letters. >

July-August 2006

On the Cover: Most Influential

COVER STORY:
Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People
Alberta has been in the national spotlight more than ever over the past year, and justifiably so. From across the province and from every walk of life, these Albertans stepped forward and made their mark

FEATURES

The Office of the Future
The latest trends in office design provide cost-saving solutions to today’s tight office market and rising energy costs. Portable walls, anyone?

Sleeping with the Elephant
A strategic alliance with a multinational partner can help your small firm reach broader markets. But how do you keep from getting squashed when the giant makes a move?

Entrepreneurial Idol
The annual VenturePrize mixes a crash course in start-ups with high-pressure competition to determine Alberta’s next top business model

INDUSTRY REPORT: TRANSPORTATION
Vital Statistics

24Hrs@YYC
What goes on beyond the average traveller’s view at Calgary International Airport? Writer Kim Green prowled the corridors and runways to find out

Our Friend the Box
Our landlocked province is benefiting big from the containerization of world trade

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: One small firm’s licence to print money; Geek chic; Virtual network draws a California company; Have a nap, on the boss; Found: a missing part of the worker equation; My Best Mistake; ATB Business Sentiments Index looks at construction
Winners’ Circle
Prairie Trader
Between the Lines
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In

June 2006

On the Cover: Scourge of Alberta’s forests, the mountain pine beetle

COVER STORY:
Keeping the Bugs at Bay
Alberta waits and watches as the mountain pine beetle inexorably makes its way to, and increasingly through, our forests. How we handle this crisis will change the face of the forest industry, the experts predict

FEATURES

The Management Guide
Don’t have the time to keep up with the latest management trends? Don’t despair. Here’s the quick and dirty on organizational strategies being put through their paces on the ground in Alberta

Stock Watch 2006
Our annual roundup and ranking of the stock-market performance of the province’s public companies

Energy Boost
How oil and gas companies and trusts have held up the Canadian markets

Top 25 Oil & Gas Performers

Top 50 Alberta TSX Performers

Top 100 Performers

Industry Report: Oil & Gas
Vital Stats

The Changing of the Guard
As the CEOs of almost all Canada’s largest oil and gas companies approach retirement age, a scramble is on for the leaders of tomorrow. Here’s what the new guard could look like

The Guru of Gasoline
Energy analyst and bestselling author Peter Tertzakian talks about becoming famous overnight, the coming “break point” in oil markets and whether energy stocks have had their run

Drifting Downstream
Weighing the odds that North America’s first new oil refinery in 30 years will be built in Alberta

DEPARTMENTS
Editor’s Note
Contributors
Outfront: Making the most of a kitschy café; What’s an ethical wage?; An accidental discovery pays off big; Putting workers in their proper place; Battle of the loyalty programs; My Best Mistake
Winners’ Circle
Great Space
Between the Lines
One of a Kind
The Big Picture
From Outside In

100% Pure Commitment

Lots of companies donate a portion of profits to what they consider worthy causes. But how about 100%, all of the time? That’s what Earth Water International, an Edmonton bottled-water company, is doing, giving virtually all of its net earnings to United Nations water aid programs in developing countries. Other firms can keep their precious profit motive; Earth Water’s happy with a letter of endorsement from the United Nations high commissioner of refugees.
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