Biography
A native of Charlottetown, PEI, David Bissett graduated from Dalhousie Law School and became a Certified Financial Analyst. Moving to Calgary, in 1982 he founded Bissett and Associates Investment Management Ltd., which invested over 5 billion dollars for private and institutional investors. After selling the company, Mr. Bissett became a Director of Templeton Growth Fund, and embarked on his vocation as a supporter of education, community organizations and wildlife habitat preservation.
In 2002, Mr. Bissett donated $5 million to Mount Royal College – a transformative gift that led to the naming of the Bissett School of Business. On May 5, 2006, David Bissett donated a further $7 million to the Bissett School of Business. It was the largest gift to a college in Canada, citing his desire to support “a business school that is creating a large pool of skilled people with a strong grounding in business practices”.
Giving to community causes has been a hallmark of David Bissett’s philanthropy. In 2001, he and his wife Leslie, gave an $8.2 million gift – it’s largest ever- to the Calgary Foundation. Mr. Bissett chaired a successful fundraising campaign for the Calgary Millennium Park and has donated to a wide range of community cultural organizations. His passion for wildlife conservation has led to support of Ducks’ Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and Delta Waterfowl Foundation.
Mr. Bissett’s good work has been recognized by many organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, Community Service Award, CNIB, Recognition Award for Support, Rotary Club of Calgary West, Integrity Award, Discovery House, Recognition Award Support, and Mount Royal College, honour of Achievement – Distinguished Citizen.
He is married to Leslie (nee Burden) and has two daughters and five grandchildren.
Biography
Clayton (Clay) Riddell grew up in a middle-class Winnipeg home, the son of a mailman. Upon graduation from the University of Manitoba, he began his career as a geologist with Chevron in 1959. Ten years later, he left Chevron to start his own business, C.H. Riddell Geological Consultants Ltd. In 1974, Clay launched a private firm called Paramount Oil & Gas Ltd. Four years later, he incorporated Paramount Resources Ltd. and sold 40% of the company to the public in an IPO, raising $5 million.
Paramount still operates today and explores for, develops, processes, transports and markets petroleum and natural gas. Paramount also prides itself on being ahead of the curve. Long before it became fashionable to do so, the company focused its exploration on natural gas. More than 90% of Paramount’s revenue is derived from natural gas sales and the company has consistently been one of the top gas-zone finders in Canada. “We built our entire company by drilling and developing gas beyond the edge of the pipelines where there wasn’t as much competition,” says Clay.
Through two restructurings, Paramount Resources has spawned two large royalty trust companies, Paramount Energy Trust and Trilogy Energy Trust. Clay’s two children, Jim and Sue, are currently running Paramount Resources and the two Trust spin-outs, with Clay’s active involvement.
In addition to his contributions to business, Clay has also been recognized as a donor to Calgary's Potential Place. This organization provides treatments for mental illness by creating a restorative environment within which individuals who have been socially and vocationally disabled by mental illness can attain or regain the self esteem, confidence and skills necessary to lead vocationally productive and socially satisfying lives. He has also been involved in fundraising initiatives for the Calgary Flames Charity Foundation, the Between Friends charity golf tournament and the University of Manitoba. The Clayton H. Riddell scholarship of Environment, Earth, and Resources at the University of Manitoba is named in Clay's honour. He donated $10-million in order to create an endowment fund for the faculty. The faculty combines the Department of Environment and Geography, the Department of Geological Sciences and the Natural Resources Institute.
Clay is a part owner of the Calgary Flames and is an investor in the food and beverage business, including the popular restaurants Wildwood Grill and Bonterra. He owns a 190-hectare ranch southwest of Calgary, where he indulges his passion for breeding thoroughbred horses. According to the Canadian Business Magazine, Clay ranked as the 50th wealthiest person in Canada in 2004. Riddell was a past president of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists and Chair of CAPP.
Biography
James Carl (JC) Anderson left his Nebraska home to study petroleum engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1950s. Following graduation with his bachelor’s degree, he worked briefly as a roustabout for Amoco in west Texas, and then spent two years in military service with U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence. He returned to Amoco in 1956 and over the next dozen years, he worked as a Petroleum Engineer in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado and Canada. In 1966, he was transferred to Calgary and became the Chief Engineer with Amoco Canada.
J.C. added Canadian citizenship to his U.S. papers, and by August 1968 had moved on to found Anderson Exploration Ltd. (Anderson), which was funded on a joint venture and share equity basis with a combination of individual investors and publicly-traded corporate investors. It went public in Canada in 1988, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001. The scale of J.C.'s accomplishment was demonstrated in 2001 when Devon Energy of Oklahoma City paid US$3.4 billion to buy the Calgary firm he built from scratch and led to the end.
Excited by exploration, this visionary in natural gas was responsible for one of the largest finds in Alberta gas history, the vast Dunvegan field. J.C. negotiated a major exploration area gas purchase contract with a unique interest-free development loan of one cent per thousand cubic feet of gas discovered. The development loan paid in at $11.2 million when the field was measured at 1.12 trillion cubic feet of gas.
J.C. was one of the first to see the promising fundamentals of natural gas as a source of energy. With great ingenuity, he built Anderson Exploration into one of Canada's top 10 oil and gas producers, the lure that attracted Devon. Operations stretched from the Beaufort Sea across Western Canada to Manitoba. There were 990 permanent employees and projected 2001 capital expenditures of $992 million. Holding 1.3 million acres, Anderson was the largest owner of exploration rights in the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea region.
Late in 2000, Anderson participated in the first exploratory well drilled on the Mackenzie Delta in 20 years, upholding its reputation as a pioneer. Within the year prior to the Devon transaction, J.C. also completed two major corporate acquisitions, each in the billion-dollar range. Never one to slow down, J.C. founded a new private company in 2002, Anderson Energy and raised $80 million to continue to explore for new undiscovered reservoirs in Western Canada.
Biography: The Spirt of Max Bell
An extraordinarily astute and far-sighted son of the Canadian West, George Maxwell Bell (1912-1972) contributed significantly to the wave of expansion of North American enterprise in the mid-twentieth century. During his multi-faceted career, Max Bell achieved pre-eminence as a businessman, entrepreneur, oilman, newspaper publisher, sportsman and philanthropist. A highly religious man, Max Bell was a sincere and generous humanitarian who possessed great vision and the practical bent necessary to translate it into reality.
Max Bell thrived on taking risks. Throughout his life, he continually supported unproven and often risky ventures. Both his mind and his spirit fed on innovation. This spirit has guided the work of the Foundation over the last 25 years.
Max Bell's fulfillment of his high and diverse aspirations is a tribute to the free enterprise system to which he was devoted. After graduating from McGill University with a Commerce degree in 1932, he held various jobs as a labourer and prospector in British Columbia.
Showing his acumen and preference for what he called the "dealing side" of business, he managed to secure a contract providing railway ties to the Canadian Pacific Railway and invested the profits in a dormant Turner Valley oil company.
In 1935, Max Bell became the business manager of his father's ailing newspaper, The Albertan. Three months later his father died, leaving the paper $500,000 in debt. In 1943, Mr. Bell raised enough money with the help of four friends to buy The Albertan. Within two years he had repaid all his father's debts.
An investment in Turner Valley Oilwell #1 would yield Max Bell his initial fortune as a result of the 1947 oil boom. He applied the profits to other newspaper investments. In a related initiative, he later became one of the original developers and owners of Alberta Eastern Natural Gas Company, pursuing a vision of drilling for low cost natural gas in southeastern Alberta.
Recognizing the potential of consolidation on a national scale, Max Bell formed a partnership with the late Victor Sifton and the late Richard S. Malone of the Winnipeg Free Press. The pooling of their respective newspaper holdings and their 1959 purchase of The Ottawa Journal resulted in the formation of F.P. Publications, Ltd., which became one of the largest newspaper chains in Canada. In 1961, Max Bell became Chairman of the organization. Under its control were, amongst others, the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Lethbridge Herald, the Victoria Times and the Victoria Colonist.
Never content with exclusive involvement in any one enterprise, Max Bell also served as a Director of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Bank of Nova Scotia, Northern Electric and a number of other major Canadian corporations as he pursued his entrepreneurial interests.
A dedicated athlete and fitness enthusiast, Max Bell was an internationally recognized sportsman. He played both football and hockey at McGill and hockey for the Kimberley Dynamiters. He developed a passionate interest in thoroughbreds, which he nurtured through his lifelong friendship and association with the legendary jockey Johnny Longden and long time friend Bing Crosby.
Not surprisingly, he was as shrewd a handicapper of racehorses as he was of business investments. He established a substantial racing operation with Frank McMahon, and their stable's colours were a familiar sight in North America and Europe.
Mr. Bell's other involvements in sports included part ownership for a number of years of the Vancouver Canucks Hockey Team and the creation of Hockey Canada of which he was the first Chairman. He was also keenly interested in ranching, and was a partner in Alberta Ranches and Golden West Farms.
The vision and spirit manifest in Max Bell's business and sports enterprises also pervaded his myriad philanthropic activities. Dedicated to the education of young people, he contributed generously to various boys' camps and provided countless university scholarships anonymously.
A student of the Bible and an active member of Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary, Max Bell led the Canada-wide institution of synods which facilitated the expansion of the Presbyterian Church in the late fifties and sixties. He had an abiding faith in God from which he continually drew his strength and to which he gave his thanks. He gave generously to the needy through the Salvation Army and supported Msgr. Athol Murray's Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan many, many times.
A fiercely loyal man, Max Bell possessed quiet courage and tenacity, attributes, which served him, well in his many undertakings. His dry wit and command of the English language made him a popular after-dinner speaker and his remarks were enlivened by an ability to tell amusing stories in almost any dialect. Mr. Bell was often quoted as saying, "The only time money is important is when you haven't any. Once you have it, however, you must accept the responsibility to make the best use of it and to ensure that those who become dependent on you for a livelihood are not injured by your transactions." His legacy to this credo is the Max Bell Foundation, which he established with the gift of a substantial portion of his estate - over $17 million in F.P. Publication shares - shortly before his tragic and premature death on July 19, 1972 at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
Since his death, the Foundation has authorized hundreds of grants totaling more than $65 million to a wide range of organizations across Canada. As stipulated by Max Bell, thirty percent of the amount awarded each year is directed to McGill University, one half to the Faculty of Medicine and the other half to the general purposes of the University.
On the Occasion of Mr. Bell's passing, numerous Canadians and organizations paid tribute:
"He was above all things a builder, and an imaginative and successful one, with a vision that went far beyond his own private interest and encompassed many good causes which he felt would help Canada. He will be greatly missed." (The Rt. Honourable Lester Pearson, former Prime Minister of Canada)
"A business genius, he nevertheless made time to devote a portion of his life to community and Canadian affairs. Canada has lost a great citizen, and the West a loyal native son." (Mr. N.R. Crump, former President of Canadian Pacific)
"His beneficences were as generous and as wide as they were largely unknown. He gave handsomely to the established institutions, to his church, to universities, hospitals, to Hockey Canada." (The Vancouver Sun)
Max Bell's legacy of philanthropy lives on.