The high-flyers in Western Canada’s business community lit up Calgary late last week at the 2000 Prairies Entrepreneurs of the Year awards.
The brightest stars of the Friday night gala awards belonged to Calgary-based air carrier WestJet Airlines. Founders Clive Beddoe, Don Bell, Mark Hill and Tim Morgan were among 11 recipients in eight categories at the awards, held at the Telus Convention Centre.
The foursome took home two awards, winning the overall award and also acing their category of Entrepreneur of the Year for Business-to-Consumer Products and Services.
“This is the academy awards of business, bar none,” said Kim Goodwin, program manager for the EOY program, which was founded by Ernst & Young and is now in its seventh year across Canada. “You are seeing the best companies across the Prairies here tonight.”
Calgary companies were prominent on the winners’ podium. Cell-Loc president and CEO Michel Fattouche won the award for Technology & Communications, while Wayne Jack of The Winrock Corp., specialists in the wall and ceiling supply industry, rose to the top for the Real Estate/Construction category.
David Cornhill, president and CEO of AlbertaGas Services Inc., grabbed the brass ring in the energy category, while Geoffrey Shmigelsky, former president of CADVision Development Corp., won the Internet Products and Services award.
“It is such an honour to be nominated for this award at such a young age,” Shmigelsky told Business Edge. “There’s a lot of very powerful, influential, famous people sitting in this room. To be sitting next to them, and be recognized as they’re being recognized, it just tickles me pink.”
One of the best-known faces in the black-tie crowd was Jim Gray, co-founder of Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., who was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The honour is awarded to individuals with “extraordinary” entrepreneurial vision who have made a lasting contribution to the business community in Canada and abroad as well as nurturing the nation’s next generation of entrepreneurs.
“I’m getting a little bit torqued that people are talking about me in the past tense,” Gray joked in an interview before the awards presentations.
Gray noted that his own achievements are the result of a collaborative team effort, including his wife, his colleagues and his community.
He also took note that many of the Calgary entrepreneurs nominated for the top awards come from the city’s thriving new-economy community. “That’s the marvellous thing about Calgary,” Gray said. “We’re a multi-dimensional city, we’re not just agriculture and energy. We’re a smart city, which means the high-tech dimension. It finds its roots here partly because of the energy business — the money and the environment, the risk-taking and technology that’s associated with the oil and gas business.”
The awards were chosen by a panel of independent judges.
The Westjet team now goes on to compete against other regional finalists at Canada’s National Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Ottawa on Nov. 1. The national winner will represent Canada at a global event in Monaco in May, 2001.
