Is it time to change the corporate brand of Canada’s most muscular oilpatch giant from EnCana Corporation to the House of Morgan?

At least one writer has suggested that Gwyn Morgan, EnCana’s Emerson-quoting president/CEO, is starting to think about succession planning.

But if Morgan, a vigorous 57, is looking for an exit, he has an odd way of showing it.

Because like love, SARS and the ghost of Elvis, Gwyn Morgan is everywhere these days.

File photo by Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
EnCana CEO Gwyn Morgan seems to be everywhere these days.

In March, he graced a page of the ROB Magazine, posing beatifically in quasi-lotus position. A staunch advocate of something called “integrative” health, he looked like a cross between Gandhi and the pitchfork-holding churchgoer in Grant Wood’s painting, American Gothic.

(The ROB portrait is a vision of spiritual calm. But is that a martial arts get-up the feisty Morgan is wearing?)

Then he turned up in Washington, urging the Canadian feds to mend fences with the United States, miffed because we failed to join the Iraq invasion.

Within days, a Morgan-penned letter appeared in Canadian Business Magazine, wherein the CEO defended EnCana’s social conscience in connection with a recent story on its interests in Ecuador.

Most recently, Morgan told EnCana shareholders the
company aims to surpass such international mega-players as Exxon Mobil Corp. to become North America’s largest supplier of natural gas.

From another source, the boast might be written off as just another CEO blowing smoke in shareholders’ eyes. But when Morgan speaks, he generally backs his words with action and results.

Five years ago, his name was seldom heard beyond the concrete crags of downtown Calgary. Today, the farm boy from the foothills is not only the most widely quoted leader in the Canadian oilpatch, he’s reinventing himself as the economic Voice of the West.

All things considered, the West could do worse. Because Morgan’s not only the most quotable energy industry leader, he’s one of the grittiest (spiritual calm notwithstanding) and maybe the most thoughtful.

He’s certainly the most interesting member of a
generally bland, one-dimensional plutocracy.

And there’s never any doubt where he’s coming from.

Naturally, his politics are ultra-conservative, which keeps him perfectly in step with the rest of the boys. And, among a goals-oriented fraternity of over-the-top Type A’s, Morgan takes a back seat to nobody.

Although he takes care to remind interviewers of EnCana chairman David O’Brien’s important role in the process, most insiders believe it was the CEO’s vision – and determination – which enabled PanCanadian and Alberta Energy Company to integrate so rapidly and apparently seamlessly into North America’s largest independent producer of oil and gas.

Analysts were impressed that the EnCana team was able to complete the $30-billion merger within a year. Most believed it should have taken twice as long.

But don’t talk to Morgan about the difficulty of
integrating corporate cultures.

“You have to create a (new) culture,” he told me recently. “I have no regard at all for past cultures.”

Case closed.

No doubt Morgan’s heightened visibility reflects his belief that corporate decision-makers owe it to themselves, their employees and shareholders to speak in defence of Western business interests against those woolly-headed Liberals in the nation’s capital.

“It’s a strange thing, but if you were to ask our MPs in Ottawa what the significance of the energy industry is to Canada, you’d probably find a real dearth of knowledge,” Morgan said through tight lips.

“They wouldn’t know that energy exports are the biggest net generator of foreign exchange revenue in the
country, which is a key reason why the dollar hasn’t grown even weaker.

“They wouldn’t realize that energy is one of Canada’s most important exports and one of our most important job
creators,” he continued.

If the above reads like the garden variety of frustrated rhetoric which has been spilling from this region for decades, well . . . point taken.

But in a real sense, Morgan and EnCana represent a
positive force for economic nationalism in a country that saw foreign control of oil and gas production climb from 43 to 48 per cent during a single recent year.

Morgan deliberately stressed the “Cana” when he created the EnCana brand: “Canadians . . . will stand up shoulder to shoulder against anybody in the world,” said the University of Alberta engineering grad.

“We have the cost structure and skillsets to headquarter companies in this country that are true global champions.”

Don’t expect him to walk away before he takes the House of Morgan all the way there.