Founder, Eaton’s Department Store

Timothy Eaton, the Irish immigrant who revolutionized merchandising and developed Canada’s successful retailing enterprise lived by the credo, “a square deal for those we sell to, for those we buy from and for those who work for us.”

His cash only, no bargaining approach supported by the now famous “Good Satisfactory or Money Refunded” policy quickly earned customer goodwill. The first Eaton catalogue in 1884 was the forerunner of a Canadian institution that continued for more than 90 years. Throughout his life, Timothy Eaton helped many people through hard times, always quietly as he avoided any personal limelight.

Donald Gordon was born in Oldmeldrum, Scotland, in 1901 and came to Canada at an early age and had four distinct careers.

At the age of 15 he joined the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto, becoming assistant chief accountant and assistant manager of the Toronto branch. In 1935, he was appointed Secretary of the Bank of Canada and later became deputy governor. Throughout the Second World War, he was Chairman of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, a remarkable assembly of the topmost business talent.

Donald Gordon is remembered best as a railroad man. As President of the Canadian National Railway from 1950 to 1966, Gordon transformed it from a state of virtual exhaustion to a modern corporation capable of competing aggressively with other rail and rapidly expanding airline and trucking industries.

Following retirement from CNR, he accepted the presidency of the British Newfoundland Corporation. The financing and construction phases of Brinco’s massive Churchill Falls power project occurred under this leadership.

In 1944, he was made a Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. In 1968, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario has honoured Donald Gordon, naming a university residence Donald Gordon House, and its conference centre Donald Gordon Centre.

Edmund Charles Bovey is credited for having transformed a relatively unknown natural gas company into Norcen Energy Resources Limited, a leading Canadian-owned integrated energy company. Having been formed to distribute gas to communities in Northern Ontario, Bovey first joined the company in 1958. Several decades later, with assets in excess of $1 billion, the company owes its success to Bovey’s leadership. However, Ed Bovey is acknowledged as far more than just a business leader.

A Chancellor at Guelph University from 1989 to 1990, Bovey is well known for his boundless energy, his skill in relating to people, and his concern for the community. This is demonstrated through the many voluntary boards on which he has served. Ed Bovey is a great supporter of the arts, as a past President and trustee of the Art Gallery of Ontario and as a Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Roy Thomson Hall has also benefited from his dedication to the arts, and in 1974 he became the founding Chairman of the Council for Business and the Arts in Canada.

Edmund Bovey was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1978 for his dedication to community and cultural activities in Toronto. He was promoted to an Officer in 1988. There is also a national award named after Bovey, given to recognize individuals in the business community who have given their time and money to support the arts.

Bovey passed away in 1990, and is remembered as a man who was deeply engaged with the world around him. He once said, “The modern corporation has evolved into a social as well as an economic institution. It has developed ideals and additional important responsibilities.” In other words, Bovey believed not only in corporate responsibility, but in corporate contribution: to the community, to the arts, and to individuals.

Founder, Henry Birks & Sons

Henry Birks was born in Montreal in 1840, his parents having emigrated from England eight years earlier. Henry’s family had been engaged in the trade and workings of fine silver for centuries, dating back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.

Henry was employed in the jewelry business at the age of 16. His first job was with the clockmaker and jewelry firm Savage & Lyman, upon graduating from Montreal High School in 1856. Birks was storage manager and partner by 1868, but the company’s financial difficulties prompted him to leave in 1877.

When Henry opened his own jewelry shop in 1879, he had only three staff: a watchmaker, a bookkeeper/salesman, and a messenger boy. His policy was unique to the trade at the time: he did not allow bargaining and accepted cash only. This strategy seemed to work for Birks, and he was soon reaping the rewards. The company was renamed Henry Birks & Sons in 1893, when sons William, John Henry, and Gerald became partners.

Despite his success, Henry continued on as humbly as ever – personally greeting customers even with a staff of two hundred, and saving every penny he could. He also taught Sunday school for over twenty years.

Following Henry’s death in 1928, his sons took over the business. Since its founding, five consecutive generations of Birks have contributed their talents to the growth and success of Henry’s dream. As of 2008, Birks possesses more international design awards for its work with diamonds than any other Canadian jeweler.

Birks’ inventive genius in retailing created one of the world’s largest and finest jewelry merchandising institutions, known today as Birks & Mayors. While its name may have changed and its size may have grown, the jewelry giant still embodies Henry’s core values: quality, exclusivity, and design innovation.

Izzak Walton Killam was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He was destined to become one of Canada’s greatest financial wizards. As President of Royal Securities Corporation and Montreal Engineering Company, he built his financial empire by funding and operating steel, pulp and paper, hydro-electric and grain companies across Canada and overseas.

Ike Killam expanded his holdings by taking control of ailing companies and nurturing them back to prosperous operations. He was known as “the mystery man” of Canadian finance because of the low public profile he maintained.

Through his wife, Dorothy, the Killam estate funded hospitals, universities and scholarships. Proceeds from his estate provided substantial funding for The Canada Council.

Joseph Vachon revolutionized the pastry making industry by the application of production line techniques and mechanization principles closely observed by him while working for the Ford Motor Company in the early 1920’s. He was an innovative man whose initiative, natural mechanical ability and extra ordinary vision transformed a small bakery founded by his mother in Ste. Marie de Beauce in Quebec into an enterprise which today produces and markets some 600 million individual cakes annually.

Joseph Vachon set the trend in Quebec for corporate compensation packages including health programs. He always acknowledged that his success was due to the talents of his employees.

Founder, Canfor Corporation

L.L.G. “Poldi” Bentley fled Austria with his family in 1938, evading the Nazis but abandoning his business as well as most of his possessions. Arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia with little more than imagination and determination, Poldi set out to make a name for himself in this new country.

Just a few months after settling in Vancouver, Bentley formed Pacific Veneer with his brother-in-law, John G. Prentice, who had also fled Austria. Their small furniture and paneling veneer company grew quickly, expanding into the forest industry and becoming a supplier of plywood for aviation and marine applications during WWII. The company was renamed Canadian Forest Products Ltd. in 1947; the company and its affiliates are known today as Canfor.

From humble beginnings, Canfor grew to become the world’s largest exporter of softwood lumber, employing over 10,000 people with sales of approximately $3 billion. Bentley passed away in 1986; the company remains a monument to his entrepreneurial spirit.

Throughout his career, Poldi Bentley adhered to a basic business philosophy: “If your word is good, you don’t need a contract in business. If your word isn’t good, you shouldn’t be in business.” There were contracts, of course, but honesty and integrity remained Bentley’s trademarks throughout more than four decades of Canadian business history.

Grant McConachie learned to fly in a Gypsy Moth in 1927, thus launching a life long association with flying. His early air freight companies led to the formation of Yukon Southern Air Transport.

He dreamed of polar routes to the Orient as early as 1940. When CPR acquired Yukon Southern in 1942, McConachie joined its air services division and was appointed President of CPA in 1947. Routes across the Pacific were inaugurated and his vision of polar routes to the Orient and Europe was realized.

Grant McConachie once stated, “We must not be satisfied merely to recognize the superiority of our free enterprise system. We must renew our dedication to it as a positive and dynamic faith.”

James Armstrong Richardson was born into the grain business established in 1857 by his grandfather. He brought his enthusiasm, foresight and organizational ability to a well planned diversification of interest such as his far sighted move into the field of investment securities in 1926.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s he pioneered in commercial aviation and radio. Even so, his first, best and last love was wheat. Farmers in Western Canada and millers throughout the world benefited from the force of his work and personality.

Jean-Louis Lévesque began to carve out a reputation as a first rate bond salesman throughout Quebec early in his career thus nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit that was to become his hallmark. He became immersed in the world of stocks and bonds by 1935 and with his remarkable perceptions, he subsequently formed an intricate network of diversified companies with dissimilar interests, such as life and general insurance, a department store, an exhibition and mall complex, race tracks and others. In 1963, his investment firm, Crédit Interprovincial Inc. Acquired L.G. Beaubien and Company and became Lévesque, Beaubien Inc. Jean-Louis never cherished the limelight but his loyalty to his people and his love for his country are well known.