Jim Pattison, Chairman, President, CEO and sole proprietor of The Jim Pattison Group

The Alberta School of Business is pleased to announce that Jim Pattison has been selected as the 2006 Canadian Business Leader recipient. The award will be presented to Mr. Pattison at the 25^th Canadian Business Leader Award Dinner on March 30, 2006 in Edmonton. Recipients of the award are leaders, entrepreneurs, and pioneers of progress in the business world.  Mr. Pattison embodies all three. From his birth in modest circumstances in Saskatchewan to Chairman, President, CEO and sole proprietor of The Jim Pattison Group, Canada’s 3^rd largest privately held company, Jim Pattison is a uniquely Canadian entrepreneur.

Pattison began his entrepreneurial journey as a youngster, first by selling garden seeds door-to-door, and then selling subscriptions to the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies’ Home Journal. He then secured a paper route and graduated to becoming a swamper – the person who throws paper off the truck.  His next job was a page boy in a hotel. When he was old enough to drive, he became a truck driver for the late edition newspapers, which gave him his own swamper to throw off the papers as he drove down the streets of Vancouver. While attending the University of British Columbia, Mr. Pattison would look for a used car in the classified ads every night, buy it, drive it to school, sell it for a profit, and take the bus home.  The rest is history.

Today, it is difficult to drive down any city or town in Canada that hasn’t been touched by Jim Pattison’s vision. You can buy a car at one of his dealerships, listen to one of his radio stations, drive by one of his billboards, buy food from one of his stores. The Jim Pattison Group, with more than 27,000 employees, is involved with a wide variety of industries including food services, packaging, distribution, manufacturing, communications, entertainment, transportation, export services, and forest products. With investments in Canada, the US, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Australia, the Jim Pattison Group has annual sales of $5.7 billion and assets totaling over $3.3 billion.

Mr. Pattison was appointed to the Order of Canada in April of 1987 and the Order of British Columbia on June 21, 1990. He is also the recipient of the Governor General’s Commemorative Medal for the 125^th Anniversary of Canada. Mr. Pattison is an inductee of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame and the Canadian Professional Sales Association Hall of Fame and was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year – Lifetime Achievement Award in September of 2000. Jim Pattison serves as a Director on a number of Boards, was Chairman and President of Expo ’86, and is a Trustee on the Board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.

When he received the International Horatio Alger Award in Washington DC in April of 2004, Mr. Pattison shared his belief that anyone who wants to accomplish economic success must be willing to work hard, be honest and sincere, and never look back at mistakes. “Only doers make mistakes,” he says. “The more you do, the more mistakes you make. Failure in life is not the mistakes you make as you attempt things; failure is when you don’t try.” Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans continues to fulfill its mission of honouring the achievements of outstanding individuals in our society who have succeeded in spite of adversity and of encouraging young people to pursue their dreams through higher education.

We look forward to honouring a most outstanding Canadian, and to hearing from him. For information on the CBLA dinner, please contact External Relations at 780-492-2348 or 1-877-362-3222.