If the life and times of Peter Wallis were a movie, it would be a sequel to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

The Toronto native’s first job was driving a Coke truck. His longest tenure in senior management was in the airline industry.

And that’s Wallis posing with an old steam engine (see photo below).

Wallis is putting his wealth of knowledge and experience in the transportation industry to good use as CEO of the Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory Affairs.

Dave Olecko, Business Edge
Peter Wallis is putting a lifetime in the business to good use as president and CEO of the Van Horne Institute.

Although Wallis has spent his entire career in the transportation industry, he has cut a wide swath in the business field.

Educated as a lawyer, he is president of Peter Wallis Consulting, a past-president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and has served on the boards of numerous public companies and organizations.

1. What was your first work experience?

“I started working in the summers at age 14 or 15 and, after getting my driver’s licence at age 16, I was entrusted with those large Canada Dry and Coca-Cola trucks on the streets of Toronto. I found working for Coca-Cola, driving the trucks and working in the factory, was a good learning experience. I grew up in an environment where sports were very important because that was my father’s livelihood. My parents owned a sporting goods store in Toronto.”

2. What was your boyhood dream?

“I’ve always had an interest in aviation and my dream was to do something in aviation. I didn’t necessarily want to be a pilot, but I always had a fascination with airplanes. My fascination was certainly fulfilled in some different ways.”

3. Who was your most important mentor or role model?

Dave Olecko, Business Edge
The Van Horne Institute’s Peter Wallis gets his facts first and listens to people.

“The individual who I think was the most influential was Rhys Eaton (former president and CEO of Canadian Airlines), whom I worked with at Pacific Western Airlines and then Canadian Airlines. When I joined that company (1980), revenues were approximately $600 million and when I left (1995) they were approximately $2 billion. He effectively moved a small carrier based here in Calgary into a world-class competitor. Rhys was a leader in all senses of the word. He was the sort of person you certainly would like to emulate but, if you couldn’t emulate him or be exactly like him, you certainly learned a lot of lessons along the way and I did.”

4. What was the most valuable lesson Eaton taught you?

“What I’ve always tried to do in any situation, thanks to Rhys’s guidance, is to take the time, get the facts and be prepared to listen to people. One of Rhys’s greatest attributes is that he could take issues and he could deal with any major issue, but he would always seek out your views. It was that type of leadership and his courage that most impressed me about the man. Art Smith (chairman of Van Horne) has also been a huge influence. He’s such a dynamic member of the community who balances a large number of community and business roles.”

5. How would you describe your leadership style?

“I like to think of it as a collaborative type of leadership style – listening to people, trying to work with them, trying to get to the best solution to the problem and then moving forward. I try not to dither too much on making the decision.”

6. What was it like working as an executive assistant to former federal transport ministers Otto Lang and Dan Mazankowski in the late 1970s?

“Both of them understood politics very well. Otto had superior capabilities of taking information, amassing huge amounts of information, distilling it and making a decision. Maz was clearly a real gentleman and had great capability in getting to the bottom of an issue.”

7. How do reflect on your time with Canadian Airlines?

“I look back with great pride in what we were able to build and the ability we had to make those quantum leaps. Rhys was the quarterback for this one, and that was taking the 737 fleet and selling it in advance to GPA Aviation, getting the money for it now and using that money to purchase CP Air. I was very pleased to have an opportunity to be part of that team. One of the things I remember very well is effectively negotiating the international rights between Canadian and Air Canada. John Crosby (then transport minister) said if you can’t agree on who should serve what countries, then I’ll do it for you. We actually negotiated with Air Canada a re-allocation of world routes, and that was something that was certainly a highlight. The allocation fell apart, as these things tend to do, but it held up for a period of time.”

8. Why did Canadian end up merging with Air Canada?

“That’s the billion-dollar question. Airlines get weakened by hyper competition. They get weakened by external factors such as (the Gulf War) at that time and fuel price spikes. I can’t give any precise answer why an airline the size of Canadian would find itself in a position where it had to merge with Air Canada. It happened long after I’d gone, and when I left the company we had just done a deal with American Airlines and it looked as if the future would be fairly positive.”

9. What is your proudest accomplishment as CEO of Van Horne?

“I think it’s the growing awareness we’re getting as to the importance of transportation and, therefore, the importance of transportation education.”

10. What’s your long-term vision for the Van Horne Institute?

“I’d like to see the institute recognized as a leader in transportation policy research. By that time, success will have meant a full teaching program up and running, and having someone in a chair position that can take the research programs and add his or her stature to that research. There are a number of individuals in Canada who are probably very well suited for that.”

11. What’s your view of the proposed federal legislation that would force Canadian airlines to work together in areas such as connecting flights and swapping passengers?

“I think the drafters of the legislation, for whatever reason, had the vision that this would give Canadian carriers who wanted access to an international network the ability to provide international air services in conjunction with their domestic packages to their customers. I think they viewed it as a positive thing for these carriers, but it probably would have been a little better to have asked them if this was an initiative that they, in fact, desired. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any takers.”

12. If you had to trade jobs with Air Canada CEO Robert Milton for a day, what would you do?

“He’s got a tough job because he’s got so many forces that are coming in on him at any one time. I mean, they’re $12 billion in debt. They have union issues that could make or break the company. Having worked with unions in my time in the airline industry, these are smart people.

“They understand what’s at stake. So if I were in Milton’s shoes for a day, I’m not sure exactly what I’d do. It’d take more than a day to make the impact I’d want to make. It’d be an interesting challenge.”

13. How do you see the airline industry in Canada evolving over the next decade?

“We seem to be running towards developing a new gauge of airline, a new type of low-cost airline structure, that may itself run into that same issue that the full-service airlines ran into. And that is just too many players in the field. Air Canada is trying to restructure itself by developing a series of smaller airlines within the airline. WestJet, who I have a lot of admiration for, stuck to their knitting in their business plan. WestJet is going to try and continue to expand. And I think Michel Leblanc at JetsGo has a fighting chance of making a go of it even though other commentators would say there isn’t enough room. I would suspect the airline industry in 10 years won’t be that different from today. I think there will be Air Canada – maybe a restructured and reshaped Air Canada – and WestJet as a major player with a number of other niche carriers. I think by then WestJet may look at a feeder network into its network as opposed to doing it themselves.”

14. What are your thoughts about the federal government’s controversial proposed ‘Straight Ahead’ railway legislation that CP Rail and CN have said may lead to re-regulation?

“It really requires a lot more research and I’m going to be very interested to see how that legislation dovetails with the new airport legislation that’s coming down as well to get a sense of really what the government feels its role should be in the governance of transportation. If you get the impression it’s free market unbounded, that’s not the sense I get out of this legislation.”

15. What are the most critical issues facing the transportation industry?

“The first issue would be infrastructure, which is one of the most critical elements to enable us as a nation to export our goods. . . . We have to get our goods to market in an efficient, cost-effective way. The infrastructure ties in with the other issue, which is taxation policy and how the infrastructure will be paid for. Some of the things we might want to look at in this country that have been looked at in the U.S. would be re-allocating revenues that flow into the federal and provincial governments in the form of fuel taxes. Fuel-tax revenue earmarked for infrastructure renewal is something that makes sense and it is making sense in the U.S. The provinces would argue, probably rightfully so, that they’re putting most of the fuel revenues back into infrastructure. The feds could probably learn a lesson from what’s happened in the U.S.”

16. What do you think about when you hear Premier Ralph Klein talk about separation?

“I just smile because I think Ralph is a consummate politician and I think he knows which bell to ring to get Ottawa’s attention – and he does it well.”

17. What’s your vision for the transportation industry in Alberta?

“I would like to see as an objective a road network, particularly in a major transportation hub like Calgary, that would actually allow the trucks, for example, to move goods quickly and efficiently.”

18. Do you foresee Calgary and Edmonton being connected by a high-speed rail service in the future?

“The Van Horne Institute is doing a study for the province on the feasibility of that type of rail service. My hunch, and it’s still only a hunch, is that the study will show that the market can certainly be stimulated by (a high-speed rail service), and if you look at it in the broader economic sense, this is something that a younger economic unit like Alberta can move on now rather than waiting like they have in Europe for many, many years and then developing it after the fact.”

19. What’s the best advice you’d offer students embarking on careers in the transportation industry?

“I guess my advice to anyone starting off would be to tell them that they’ve chosen a field that will ultimately give them pride in what they’re doing. It’s going to be tough because transportation doesn’t get a lot of respect. It’s tough to get people’s minds around the fact that transportation is an extremely important element of their economic well-being. My advice would be to choose the field, to be prepared to be in it for the long haul and get a lot of personal satisfaction from it.”

20. How long would you like to remain CEO of the Van Horne?

“Oh, I think I’ve got a few good years left. So I haven’t put any number on it. . . The beautiful part of life (here) is that an hour from now the phone could ring and there could be a new opportunity, a business opportunity or an opportunity to serve somewhere, and you weigh them all. I like to keep busy.”

IN PROFILE: Peter Wallis
* Born/raised/age: Toronto, 60.
* Title: President, CEO, Van Horne Institute.
* Family: Wife Terry, four children.
* Education: BA, University of Toronto; bachelor of laws, Osgoode Hall (Toronto); master of laws, University of London (England).
* Career: Wallis has been CEO of the Van Horne Institute since 1997 and is president of Peter Wallis Consulting Limited. From 1980 to 1995, he held senior positions with Pacific Western Airlines and Canadian Airlines. Prior to that, he was senior counsel for the Air-Canadian Transport Commission in Ottawa and executive assistant to two federal ministers of transport. He is a past-president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and sits on the boards of numerous
companies and community organizations.
* Passions: Classical music, golf, photography, sports, wine-making.

THE COMPANY: Van Horne Institute
* Brass: Peter Wallis, CEO/ president; Art Smith, chairman; Darshan Kailly, vice-chairman.
* Profile: Founded in 1991, the Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory affairs is the catalyst for the development of education and public policy in transportation and regulated industries. The
not-for-profit institution is affiliated with the University of Calgary, University of Alberta and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Membership is open to companies interested in transportation or regulatory affairs.
* Website: www.vanhorne.info
* Address: 620 Earth Sciences Building, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, T2N 1N4.
* Phone: 403-220-8455.