His passing this week at 97 marks a moment in Canadian energy that bears reflection to recall a lost generation of the “gentleman leader.” It is a sectoral hallmark worth remarking on given its prevailing absence today – and its implications for public trust and support.
In a nutshell, today’s leaders are for the most part driven by corporate balance sheet imperatives and shareholder value creation; no longer is the “industry’s balance sheet” important in the ways it was in the past.
Gerry Maier symbolized that concern and commitment to the sector’s welfare before individual corporate welfare. He knew that focusing on the first would help take care of the second.
He led with purpose; a combination of “gritty gravitas,” integrity, corporate savviness and technical talent. In the process, left indelibly profound and progressive marks on some of Canada’s top energy companies.
Even though I have been in the oil and gas sector for 25 years, I came to it later in life. That’s simultaneously an advantage and disadvantage. People who “grow up” in the sector often fail to comprehend how it is seen “from the outside looking in” – and that failure results in a diverse array of negative consequences – public trust being a primary casualty. People (like me) who enter from “the outside” can work from within to build perspective bridges across polarized perspectives.
But to be that bridge builder you must know a little something about the foundations on which bridges can be built.
Thanks, in large measure to Gerry Maier’s influence and mentorship, I think I’ve had modest success in that regard.
But there’s a larger industrial context worth considering. Ours is a sector terrible for honouring and celebrating its past in an enduring way – in ways that illuminates pathways into a future that grows darker and more complex with each passing year.
Within minutes of meeting Gerry, I knew he was such a pathfinder. And thanks to his guidance and leadership I gained five years of sectoral experience for each year I spent working.
We really began to know each other well through the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame, a now wrapped-up non-profit society that existed to valorize and recognize achievements of the women and men who built the sector in diverse ways.
Gerry was a Hall of Famer, par excellence. He symbolized the common leadership value traits pretty much absent from contemporary energy leadership discourse.
Honesty. Integrity. Imagination. Caring.
Gerry did actually represent a mythology-as-reality: he lived in the days when handshakes and details scribbled on napkins meant something.
Those were the attributes the industry valued back in the day. And they were the attributes celebrated and honoured by broader Canadian society.
I started as a newbie Hall of Fame volunteer – and ultimately became board chair for its last years, thanks in large measure to Gerry’s mentorship. That I had built the credibility to take over the chair’s role was down to Gerry’s teaching. He encouraged me to poke back into history’s dimmer energy shadows and ask contemporary questions of past experiences.
Gerry was one of those real examples of the old industry saw: Alberta’s best engineering talent imports were Saskatchewan farm-boy exports. He was schooled at that province’s famed Athol Murray College of Notre Dame and then the University of Alberta. His career launched in 1951 with the Sun Oil Company; in 1953 he joined the Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas Company and rose to executive vice-president in 1977. He chaired the company’s board in 1980 and oversaw its sale to Dome Petroleum a few years later. Then, he became president of Bow Valley Industries and left there to become TransCanada Pipeline president in 1985 before retiring as its chair in 1998. Threaded within that ascension of the corporate ladder were critical stints of international context: responsibility for assets in the United Arab Republic, Southeast Asia and the North Sea.
As with all such talented corporate leaders, multiple directorships came his way – all responsibilities he discharged with flair and competence.
But Gerry’s boardroom chops were shaped by practical experience: he had staked mining claims, worked as surveyor and perhaps most symbolically powerful, as an oilfield roughneck.
Many other awards – more than 25 in total – also came his way, including an Order of Canada – a recognition of how much he stepped outside his work role into various community roles, including Calgary’s 1988 Winter Olympics bid. There were also stints with the World Petroleum Congress, the King’s Own Calgary Regiment, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Christian History Project.
And, of course, the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame.
That’s the corporate stuff. A life lived well and lived fully in corporate service.
Yet, there was another Gerry. The caring Gerry.
He cared authentically about what people outside the sector actually thought about the sector – a passion that ignited a similar flame inside me.
As I reflect on what Gerry taught me over the years, and how I can apply those learnings to the time I have left in the sector, I know he would encourage me not to be completely naïve about believing the past can teach the future everything.
But there’s one thing I do know for certain is what today’s industry can learn from Gerry and many of those from his era: how to lead like a gentleman. There are many ways to define the word, indeed a thousand ways.
A photograph of Gerry Maier does just the trick.
Because in his era, oilman and gentleman were considered synonymous by many.
Especially by me.