Brian Heidecker

Chair of the University of Alberta Board of Governors

On Brian's driveway 1,800 young plants await kinder weather for transplanting. Started from seed in his basement, these tender products of his self-confessed grow-op are arrayed on plywood platforms set on casters.

In case of frost, they can be easily wheeled into a spacious garage. Another 900 or so annuals, all meticulously organized, continue their lives under lights below ground. His computer is his garden management tool. Excel files store the essential plant data: varieties, sizes, germination dates and colour combinations for easy reference. From bare dirt in 2002 to Front Yards in Bloom competition winner in 2006, this garden expresses the joyful–if micro-managed–soul of management guru Brian, in collaboration with partner, Donna Bagdan.

Brian’s life has always been about growing things. Growing them efficiently, quickly and always according to plan. In 30 years, Brian has sat on 16 boards of directors, chairing more than several and serving in more than 50 positions. He is convinced he drives people nuts when he insists, time and again, “I always have to know what the game plan is.” But this is how he has managed to generate profit for organizations, whether for his ranching operation or the Bank of Canada. Whatever board he sits on, he questions, chivvies and challenges fellow members and senior management to develop consensus around a game plan that addresses “where we are going and why, how we are going to get there and when.” He has brought many an organization back to earth from its wanderings.

As a rural farm lad, for fun Brian sat in gravel pits observing the trucks coming and going, in his mind’s eye- improving traffic and product flow. At 21, Brian rented 1600 acres and began mixed farming. By 27, he owned three-and-a-half sections and raised feeder cattle. His business sense, “to be where everybody else wasn’t” reaped profits that enabled him to continue purchasing land, eventually owing 16,500 acres. Self-taught, Brian reads business, biography, sociology and psychology–anything to help him understand not only business but people. He has masterminded strategic planning at both the Bank of Canada and the Alberta Treasury Branch during his board tenure. As chair of the University of Alberta Board of Governors, he says proudly that it’s “one of the few academic organizations that has a good game plan.”

Brian asks how you can do things better, how you can improve working conditions, and the joy of living–and gardening. An Alberta Ingenuity trustee, Brian acknowledges the need to create alternatives to nonrenewable resource revenues. “We have to find a way to manage existing waste streams and turn them into profit streams.” It can be done, he is convinced, with resources dedicated to the big-picture research funded by Alberta Ingenuity. “All we have to do is get out and tell our story,” for it will fertilize the garden.

In his late teens, works on oil rigs, high steel rigger, construction; observed management and logistics
Subforeman at Calgary Packers; learns how not to manage people and resources
Rents land from family estate
Purchases first land: 2,240 acres
In 28 years, builds Drylander Ranch from 0 - 16,500 acres
Attends first PC event and hears Peter Lougheed speak
Director, Canadian Cattleman's Association
Appointed Alberta Director, Bank of Canada Board
Appointed Director, Alberta Agricultural Development Corporation Board
Changes approach to achieving objectives after completing a Myers Briggs assessment
Meets and becomes great friends with Lois Hole; raises $172,000 bursary on her retirement as Chancellor of the University of Alberta
Appointed to the University of Alberta Board of Governors
Appointed Chair of the University of Alberta Board of Governors
Transfers ownership of Drylander Ranch to son