It begins:

What inspired you to write The Shards of Excalibur? Have you always had an interest in Arthurian legend?

I have always had an interest in things Arthurian, or at least since I read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King as a kid, followed up with Mary Stewart and any number of other retellings since. But what inspired The Shards of Excaliburwasn’t initially my interest in the Arthurian legends, but a very specific place: Wascana Lake, the man-made lake in the heart of Regina where Ariane sees the staircase descending into the water and meets the Lady of the Lake for the first time. I live near Wascana Lake and have for 20 years, so I’m often walking around it. One day I was particularly taken with a heavy mist turning golden in the morning light, and thought, “It looks mystical. Anything could be hidden in that mist.” And then I thought, “Well, why not?”

Read the whole thing.

The feature is called “A fantastic life” and begins thusly:

Edward Willett has a few things on his plate these days.

In fact, he could probably use a few more plates.

Known in these pages as the editor of Fine Lifestyles Regina, and sister magazines Fine Lifestyles Saskatoon, Fine Homes Regina and Fine Weddings Regina,Willett is also a writer of science books, children’s fiction and biographies, and a nationally recognized science fiction novelist. In the weeks leading up to publication of this edition, he was also completing a manuscript that was due to his publisher, working on the rewrite of another novel, and trying to make progress on a third book in which a publisher had shown interest.

Oh, and did we mention he is also an actor and singer?

“I’m on the fly all the time,” Willett says during a recent interview that is interrupted at least four times by his ringing cell phone. “I get up in the morning and think, ‘Okay, what do I have to do today?’”

As a freelance editor, writer and performing artist, Willett has worked 17 years for the privilege of being so busy. In 1993, he walked away from a full-time position as communications officer for the Saskatchewan Science Centre.

“I had an offer from Prairie Opera in Saskatoon to do a two-month school tour,” Willett recalls. “So I knew I had two months of paying work coming.

“That seemed like enough,” he adds with a laugh. “I was perhaps a little braver than I realized.”

Read the whole thing.

The story, by Tim Switzer, begins:

Fine Lifestyles Regina includes a feature about me, written by Mark Claxton, and although I’m not exactly shy about promoting myself, I do feel I should emphasize it wasn’t my idea: publisher Randy Liberet suggested it, and who was I to argue?

Once everything’s online, I’ll link to that and the other articles I wrote for the magazines (although it appears the feature on Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre got cut at the last minute for some reason, and will run in the next issue).

I had a school reading last Friday at W.S. Hawrylak School, for about a hundred Grade 7s and 8s, and it seemed to go really well. I even got a few laughs as I read the first chapter, which was gratifying.

(And, yes, I did sing to wrap up the reading. “Me,” from the stage version of Beauty and the Beast. Don’t all authors?)

Monday, I polished up Twist of the Blade, Book 2 of The Shards of Excalibur, and sent it off to my editor at Lobster Press. Lots of rewriting to come on it, I’m sure, but I’m pretty happy with it, and with the title…because there most definitely are some twists in this one.

I’m expecting more reviews of Song of the Sword shortly: keep watching this space!

With our Fall books soon on the way, we want to start introducing you to some of our new authors! This week, we have a behind-the-scenes Q&A with Edward Willett, author of the upcoming novel, Song of the Sword, the first book in the Shards of Excalibur series.

Why did you choose to re-envision the story of the Lady of the Lake and Merlin?

I’ve been fascinated by the legends of King Arthur for as long as I can remember. There are so many of them, and yet there always seems to be room for one more. So… this is mine.

Read the whole thing!

***

Saskatoon Mayor Donald Atchison likes to say anyone who doesn’t like the way things are going in this city should call his wife, Mardele, “because she was the one who encouraged me to run.”

It’s a joke, of course, and yet there’s an element of truth to it. She was the one who encouraged him to run, first for city council and then for mayor, and Atchison makes it clear that if it weren’t for her support, he wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as mayor today.

In fact, if there’s one thing that shines through a conversation with the mayor more than anything else, it’s his love and appreciation for his wife.

Don met Mardele Assaly in high school, at Walter Murray Collegiate. “My brother (Doug) was a real charmer,” he recalls. “She was more interested in my brother than me. But he moved away afterward. Mardele and I met again one day, one thing led to the next, and we ended up getting married. It’s been wonderful.”

Mardele, Don says, basically raised their five children, Jason, Carrie, Don Jr., Brielle and Aria. They’re all grown now—the youngest is 25, four are married (and have given Don and Mardele five grandchildren) and Aria is getting married in August. “Mardele is a wonderful parent,” Don says. “She is very good. She’s the one who was really the guiding principle with the kids.”

It seems clear she’s also been a guiding principle for the mayor. “I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Mardele, I know that. She is just a wonderful person, a great wife, and a great friend.”

But Don also pays tribute to his parents, Frank and Martha. When Don was born, Frank was working with CN as an engineer, and his Martha was in real estate. But Frank had been in menswear just after the war, and in the early ’70s he returned to it. Today, in their mid-80s, Frank and Martha continue to run Atch & Co. at 214 21st St. E. (a store Don was very involved with up until he was elected mayor), and continue to campaign for their son when election time rolls around.

“A great childhood”

Born and raised in Saskatoon, Don says he had “a great childhood.” Not only did he have “a really good family life,” along with his brother Doug and sister Debbie, “I got to play most of the sports in our city. I had a wonderful experience.”

“When I was in Grade 8 I got to play in the East Side/West Side All-Star Hockey Game, the last one ever held in Saskatoon. The rink was full.”

He played pee wee hockey, midget hockey, juvenile hockey, and eventually played for the Blades. “I also played for the Saskatoon Macs, which became the Saskatoon Quakers, and played in the first-ever Canada Winter Games, held right here in Saskatoon.”

And, he adds proudly, “Either my Mom or my Dad were at every hockey game I ever played in Saskatoon. They always came to watch, one or the other.”

He also played golf and football. At Walter Murray, in four years on the team, he was rookie of the year one year in senior football and captain as well. “I think that was another great learning experience,” he says. “I was really fortunate in all my sports to have wonderful coaches.”

From the Blades, Don was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League, who put him into their farm teams. “I played in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I played in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and I played in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on the team the movie Slapshot was about.” (And in case you’re wondering, Don says “a lot of that movie was very factual.”)

He was eventually called up to the Penguins as a backup goaltender, but he never actually played in an NHL game. Still, he says, “I was really lucky to have experienced all of that.”

Farewell to hockey

After a while, though, he had to choose between continuing to play hockey, and potentially spending his entire career in the minors, or hanging up his skates. “I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the minor leagues, so I left hockey and came back to work in the store.”

Not that “leaving hockey” meant leaving it entirely. He soon became involved with the junior Quakers, coaching the team and eventually owning it. He took the team to Europe twice, and even coached it in the Canada Winter Games, a nice bit of symmetry since he had played in the first-ever Canada Winter Games with the same team. Later on, he coached goaltenders for the Blades.

Everything, though he didn’t think of it that way at the time, was preparing him for being in politics. “In a lot of ways sports and retail experience gives you a good mix,” he says. “Harry Truman was a clothier as well, and there have been other leaders that have also come from the clothing industry. It’s all about the customer service. It bodes well for getting into public life.”

And having been at various times a goaltender, a coach and a referee, he says with a laugh, he’d gotten used to something else that goes with political life, “people always second-guessing what you should have done.”

Don’s first taste of politics actually came in high school, when he ran for the SRC at Walter Murray Collegiate. “I never thought I’d ever be in politics. I did that because I wanted to be involved in the school. It was quite interesting.”

“You should run for city council”

The fateful decision to actually run for elected office as an adult came up almost out of the blue. “We were sitting at home one night watching television, I think it was on a Monday night, and they were saying that nominations closed on the Wednesday. Mardele said, ‘I think you should run for city council. I think you could do a really good job.’” They talked it over, and the next day he went and got the nomination papers and found 25 people to sign them.

“We always hear about the business community talking about how things should be done, but never getting involved in the political end of it,” Don says. “I just wanted to bring a business point of view to council. That’s why I ran, and I said I would work hard.”

He was elected, and continued to be elected for the next nine years. “The first term you had to learn how things function in a municipal government as opposed to the private sector,” Don says. If you own a business, he points out, you can simply show up one morning and say, “This is how it’s going to be. “In government it works more on the basis of consensus-building,” he says. “I had to learn to understand all of that.”

In the years he served on city council, he used to say to himself, “If I was the mayor, I would do it this way or that way…and then one day after nine years I decided that it was time to run for mayor.”

The result? “The citizens of Saskatoon were really kind, and they’ve given me the opportunity to be the mayor for several years.”

He’s proud of the way the city has developed over the past few years. “We had 19 years of consecutive GDP growth,” he points out. “2009 was the first year we were either at zero or slightly below, but this year looks like it will be a very positive year. We’ve had the best overall GDP growth in Canada.”

But don’t call it a boom. “I don’t like to use the word booming,” Don says pointedly, “because people think there will be a bust,” and he doesn’t believe that will happen, in part because Saskatoon has such a balanced economy.

He recalls the Conference Board of Canada investigating Saskatoon because it couldn’t understand how the city could keep growing during a time when the farming sector was in the doldrums. The reason, he says, is that although Saskatoon is a prairie city and certainly services the surrounding farmland, it’s got a lot more going for it. “We’re mining, transportation, education, manufacturing, processing,” he says. “People don’t realize we’re the largest steel manufacturing centre west of Toronto. The largest piece of mining equipment in the world is manufactured in Saskatoon.”

Mining, research, education and more

He lists other assets of the city, starting with the mining industry, “billions of dollars are going to be invested into potash alone in upgrades and new mines.” Saskatoon also serves the nascent Saskatchewan diamond industry, plus the north’s gold and uranium mines and, of course, the oil industry.

The university is a big part of the Saskatoon economic picture as well, Don says. “We do 30 percent of all the agricultural biotech research in Canada in Saskatoon at Innovation Place,” he points out, and there are many other developments at the university that contribute to the city’s success, from the Canadian Light Source to the new International Vaccine Centre. “The university is a big, big part of our community as well. We have worked very hard to make sure the city and the university have a good relationship with each other.”

He’s proud of the fact that the city of Saskatoon, unique among all the cities of the world, gave $2.4 million toward the construction of a facility intended strictly for primary research, the Canadian Light Source.

Saskatoon has done other unique things. “Our Land Branch is unique for selling residential property,” he points out. “We run it as a business. We need to get a return on our investment.”

And yet, Don notes, even while he strives to apply a lot more business practices to the way the municipal government does things, it’s important to be mindful that there is a social side that has to be cared for as well. “It’s a combination of putting both together. Coming from the private sector, I think I have a good understanding of both sides of the story.”

“When I was first growing up almost everyone knew everyone in the city,” he adds. “We’ve tried to keep a community-type flavour, but as you get larger it’s harder to get to know everyone in your community, especially now when we have around 225,000 people.”

Social and cultural achievements

On the social/culture side of things, Don is particularly proud of the Shaw Centre, “the number-one aquatic centre in North America, if not the world.” The city partnered with the public school board, the separate school board, the provincial and federal governments and private donors to build the Centre, located between two new schools in Blairmore.

Another “truly remarkable story” is Persephone Theatre’s new facility, “the first actual business” on River Landing. “The theatre opened up with no mortgage, and it’s focused on culture. It’s not a private-sector business and it’s not a government institution. I think that’s exceedingly important.”

Don attributes part of his appreciation for the importance of culture to his upbringing. “My first introduction was taking piano lessons when I was younger,” he says. He eventually reached the Grade 8 level.

“I took lessons because I had to (as a condition for playing hockey), not because I wanted to. But when I look back on it, I think it helped shape my outlook on life.

“In government, they always talk about sports and culture as one department. I think they really do belong together. I have a better understanding of both today because of my parents insisting that I participate in a variety of cultural activities.”

As mayor, Atchison keeps a busy schedule, and once again he pays tribute to Mardele for making it possible for him to do so. “I don’t take much time off work, off the role as the mayor,” he says, and as a result, he and Mardele agreed that they would only go on a holiday every second year while he’s mayor.

“We’ve been going to Europe, since being mayor. We’ve travelled most of Europe now on different tours. We’ll go to Palm Springs now as well for a few days.” But basically, he says, “I spend most of my time in and around the city and just travelling on city business.

“Mardele is just wonderful,” he says again. “She’s very understanding, very, very understanding about the number of hours I put in. I travelled to the Olympics, saw a bit of figure skating, and worked at the pavilion. There are a lot of trips to places I’m sure Mardele would love to go as well, but it just doesn’t make any sense because it’s business. She doesn’t say anything about that, just ‘Get home as soon as you can.’”

Family, friends and fun

Within the city, they like to spend time with their family (four of their children remain in Saskatoon; one, Jason, is in Calgary). As well, “We enjoy going golfing together, certainly enjoy fine dining, going to a movie, going to plays.”

They like to dine out, but diplomatically, Atchison refuses to name a favourite restaurant. “They’re all my favourites,” he says. “Saskatoon really and truly has great restaurants. As our community continues to diversify, we continue to have more and more different ethnic restaurants in our community, which is reflective of the community as a whole.”

As for plans for the inevitable day when he is no longer mayor of Saskatoon, Atchison says he doesn’t have any at all.

“I’m the type of person that stays very focused on what I’m doing at the time,” he says. “When I left professional sports, I just left it behind. There’s no point in having regrets, what’s over is over.”

“I coached hockey. When I was finished, people wanted to know if I had regrets. No, that was just another part of my life. The same is true of retail. One stays focused on what they’re doing today.”

Which is not to say he doesn’t look to the future. He does; but for Atchison, thoughts of the future are focused on what he’d still like to achieve as mayor. There’s the ongoing development of River Landing. There’s work to be done on the city yards. “We need to look at moving our buses out of Caswell Hill. A North Bridge needs to be accomplished as well.  We still need to stay focused on affordable housing and good-paying jobs. The list goes on and on.”

“Can I do a better job? Of course! You can always do better.”

Striving for perfection

Atchison recounts a time when he was coaching future NHL star Tim Chevelday during his time with the Saskatoon Blades. “One day he had a shutout. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can’t say anything to me today, I had a shutout.’

“And I said, ‘Well, what about this pass? What about that play?’ He said, ‘You’ll never be satisfied.’ I said, ‘No, when you play a perfect game I’ll be satisfied.’

“We always strive for perfection, and strive to do better all the time. You reflect back and see how you could have done a better job.”

Ultimately, Don Atchison’s philosophy is the same one that he and Mardele have tried to instil in their children: “Work hard, and be kind and understanding to other people.”

***

Paul Hill says he’s most known in Regina for three things: his blue 1976 Mercury Marquis, his habit of consuming eight Diet Cokes a day, and his addiction to non-fat frozen yogurt.

Of course, that list leaves out one other minor thing of note: Paul is president and CEO of The Hill Companies and Harvard Developments Inc., companies intimately intertwined with the history of Regina, owning and/or managing more than two million square feet in Regina and five million square feet in Western Canada.

The Hill Companies were born in 1903 as McCallum Hill & Company, formed by Walter H.A. Hill (Paul’s grandfather) and a partner. Walter Hill later sold the land on which the Saskatchewan Legislative Building now stands to the provincial government, and went on to develop the Lakeview residential area. Paul’s father, the late Frederick W. Hill, after completing an MBA at the Harvard Business School, joined the company to work with his father in 1947.

Born in the U.S.A.

Although he’s definitely a Regina boy, growing up in the city and attending Campion College, Paul was born in Cambridge, Mass.

“My father was in the Canadian Air Force,” he explains. “He was discharged because he had a rheumatic fever history, and decided to get an MBA at Harvard.

“During his first term, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and the Americans were ramping up their armed services. He went over to the recruiter and said he wanted to get inducted. So when everyone else was trying to get deferments, he ended up in the U.S. Army Air Force.”

Fred flew as a captain of B-17 and B-24 bombers and received the Distinguished Flying Cross with three oak-leaf clusters. During training exercises, he met Paul’s mother in Washington, D.C. while she was working at the British Embassy. They fell in love right away and after five dates got married.

Fred went on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force overseas, and was discharged in 1945. He returned to Harvard University, and Paul was born in October of 1945.

The family returned to Regina in 1947, but Paul went back to the U.S. for university, thanks to one of his father’s war-time connections: his co-pilot, Paul’s godfather, was from Washington. “He was a Georgetown guy, and so I ended up going to Georgetown University.”

Paul says he was interested in business from a very early age. (Although he admits that one time in Grade 1 or 2 he expressed an interest in being a fireman).

“My father would always bring his associates back to the house at the end of the day,” he recalls. “I would always have a high level of curiosity, and sit and listen to their conversations.”

When Paul met Carol

Young Paul was interested in more than just business, of course. He was also interested in girls. He met his future wife, Carol Erb, daughter of former provincial cabinet minister Walter Erb, when he was actually dating her best friend.

“I took her best friend home and Carol was there, and that’s how we met,” he recalls.

Paul was at Campion College and Carol was in Grade 12 at Sacred Heart at the time, but their paths hadn’t crossed because until that year she and her best friend had been attending Luther College.

“We got married the same year, December 28, 1963,” Paul says. He already knew he was going to Georgetown University, and “we decided that since I was going away the next four years that we wanted to commit to each other for the rest of our life, and we wouldn’t be able to do that if we lived apart for the next four years.”

Carol joined Paul at Georgetown, and also studied there. From Georgetown they moved to London, Ont., where Paul attended the Richard Ivey School of Business, “the Harvard of Canada,” obtaining his MBA.

Like Harvard, the Ivey School of Business teaches business via “case method,” Paul explains.

“It’s a program that involves hundreds of cases that are written about real-life circumstances in various companies and business,” he says. “The cases are focused on various aspects of the business decision-making process. The goal is to learn how to make a better decisions through a disciplined thought process.

“You can’t study for it. It’s a very intense program that goes right up until the last day of class. The next day you go into two sets of four-hour exams. There’s nothing you could ever study for. It was all learning how to make decisions, recognize opportunities, and anticipate problems, learning how to solve them before they occur.”

From school, Paul went into the investment banking business in Toronto with the predecessor of what is now Nesbitt Burns, working as an analyst. From Toronto he went to Winnipeg, where he managed the company’s retail and institutional operation.

Back in Regina

Then, in 1976, he returned home to work with his father. (That was when he bought the Mercury Marquis.) In 1978 he was appointed president of The Hill Companies, the position he’s held ever since.

Paul believes he put his stamp on the companies early, not through any grand strategic planning, but simply by being “entrepreneurial and opportunistic.” One of the first things he oversaw was the acquisition of the local CTV television station, followed by the growth of Harvard Broadcasting Inc. radio stations 620 CKRM and Lite 92 FM and 104.9 The WOLF. “We are a strong regional radio broadcaster today,” Paul notes, the company having extended its media holdings to Yorkton, Saskatoon, Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton and Fort McMurray.

“The second thing that happened was putting together a team of experienced real estate professionals to fulfill the redevelopment plan for downtown Regina,” Paul continues. “This included the demolition of the old McCallum-Hill building, built by my grandfather in 1912. It was replaced with the Hill Centre Towers I & II.”

(An interesting side note: the Hill Centre Towers I & II were designed by the Chicago architectural firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which was just in the news again as the architects of the world’s new tallest building, the Burj Dubai. “You can go to any international city in the world, and you will find a Skidmore Owings building which will stand out as unique to that total environment,” Paul notes. “We went to Skidmore to give us a unique design that will only be in Regina and nowhere else in the world. That’s the difference they make. Our design will never be duplicated. It’s served the city well, and we have that connection on the world stage.”)

The company followed that up with several more distinctive downtown buildings, including the Bank of Montreal Building, the Crown Life (now Canada Life) Building, and the FCC Tower/Agriculture Place Building, and spearheaded the linkage of all those buildings via climate-controlled pedestrian walkways.

The Hill Companies started out focused on real estate and insurance, and that’s still the core business, Paul says. “Today, that includes Harvard Western Insurance, the general insurance company, Western Surety Company, the contract-bonding company, and Harvard Developments Inc., a full service real estate company.”

Diversification into the U.S.

Another big change during Paul’s stewardship has been diversification into the United States. “We made a decision to diversify into the United States, and opportunistically had acquired the Canadian assets of Tenneco Oil of Canada Ltd., with an American partner. It’s now called Harvard Energy.

“That was a big change that was motivated by what was happening in Ottawa. In 1979 to 1981, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau was prime minister, it became clear that Canada might be in for some long-term problems as a result of fiscal irresponsibility and massive government intrusion into the economy, such as the National Energy Program. It really stemmed from my background in the investment banking industry. I was aware of the penalty Canada was going to have to pay over the next 20 years, which is exactly the same set of circumstances that is now occurring in the United States under the Obama administration.”

Another major diversification move was the acquisition, with partners, of a bankrupt company, UFR Urban Forest Recyclers Inc. of Swift Current. The company developed a manufacturing business making molded fiber products, and now has more than 40 percent of the North American egg tray market.

In 1990, The Hill Companies made national news by acquiring the controlling interest in Crown Life and moving it to Regina from Toronto. “That brought 1,200 jobs to Regina and expanded the GDP of the province by two percent and of the city by 10 percent,” Paul notes. “I became Chairman and it prospered for a number of years. It’s now owned by Canada Life and remains a significant presence in the City.”

“Our western Canadian real estate company continues to grow,” he adds.  “Under the leadership of our talented senior management team, we have under development a major retail urban center in Regina called ‘Grasslands’ at Harbour Landing, as well as ‘Preston Crossing,’ located on the University of Saskatchewan lands in Saskatoon, the ‘Eau Claire’ redevelopment in Calgary and ‘The Currents of Windermere‘ in Edmonton. These are major multi-year developments which include large national retailers. The projects are in the 20- to 100-acre size and range from $50 million to $800 million. This is the next 10 years of our company. It will literally change these cities.”

Green technology is another focus. “We owned a U.S. software company which developed programs for health and safety and environmental management,” Paul says. “The customer base included many Fortune 500 companies and many foreign companies operating out of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. We’re very focused on reducing the costs associated with the production of energy and eliminating, as much as possible, the excessive consumption of products that produce emissions.”

Harvard Developments is the first organization in Saskatchewan operating under private-public partnership to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Accreditation, on the redeveloped Century Plaza building located in downtown Regina.

Though Regina has always been, and continues to be, home base, “Saskatchewan has had a history of not having continuous growth, which has encouraged us to diversify into other geographic areas, and also to be entrepreneurial and opportunistic with regard to other industries,” Paul says.

“My grandfather struggled and survived through the two world wars and the 1930s. The company Walter Hill founded is the only real estate business in Canada that has survived a full 100 years: it celebrated its centennial in 2003.”

Now, says Paul, “Saskatchewan is again growing. The Hill Companies have developed an excellent, experienced team with capabilities second-to-none in Saskatchewan. They are dedicated to assisting and helping to bring the province’s growth opportunities into reality.” The cities of Saskatchewan, Paul says, deserve to enjoy the finest facilities and services of any jurisdiction in the country.

Inspired by Mother Teresa

Making Regina and Saskatchewan better places to live is very important to both Paul and Carol. Paul notes that he and his wife had the opportunity to visit Mother Theresa in India with other CEOs and their spouses in the 1980s.

“She really mesmerized the group we were with,” Paul remembers. “Many wanted to help her initiatives around the world. But her response to us was, ‘Go back to your own community, identify the needs, and give both of yourself and your resources to help those people.’”

Paul and Carol have always been interested in helping students become leaders in society. They support Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, attended by students from all over Western Canada and other parts of the world.

A major new initiative emanating from Mother Teresa’s message is now at the feasibility stage, as Paul works to establish a Nativity Miguel School in Regina.

“What this network of schools in the United States have done is entered into the inner cities, taken kids from Grade 6, 7 and 8, from diversified backgrounds, and developed their educational and motivational skills to the point where they have been able to change a 90-percent drop-out rate for these students in high school to a 90-percent pass rate.

“The school takes 15 to 20 kids per class at a time, and works with them for extended hours and days for three years, giving them the foundation for success in high school and beyond. We’ve been working on it for two years. We hope to be up and running next year.”

Alongside that initiative, the Hills have set up a foundation called “One Life Makes a Difference” to select one student at a time to be given an opportunity to get out of the environment they are in and attend a school such as Notre Dame to obtain a complete educational experience that can take them on to university.

Other education initiatives have included the evolution of the University of Regina’s Faculty of Business Administration into the Paul J. Hill School of Business. The business school has always been reputable, Paul says, but “there was an opportunity to take it to the next level in terms of quality and recognition.”

The Paul J. Hill School of Business is now partnered with the Richard Ivey School of Business, where Paul received his MBA, “recognized as one of the top schools in the world.” The school is implementing the full case-method program used at Ivey and Harvard, and also includes a student exchange program and Ph.D. development. As well, business cases from Western Canada are now being written and distributed on a worldwide basis under the Hill-Ivey brand name. The program includes a specific emphasis on business ethics.

Paul and Carol have also helped initiate a Catholic studies program at Campion College.

Five children

Their own children have all attended Jesuit-run universities in the United States. “We wanted them to experience American culture, and to go to schools that require a minimum amount of philosophy and theology,” Paul says.

Eldest daughter Rosanne Hill Blaisdell, who like her father obtained an MBA, is working with Harvard Developments and is responsible for the company’s office portfolio in Regina and in Calgary.

Their second daughter, Shannon, got a law degree and now at age 42 has gone back to school, after having three children, for a medical degree.

Their only son, Matthew, married a girl from Michigan and has founded a technology-related company is Los Angeles. Their second-youngest daughter, January, is in early childhood education in Calgary, and their youngest, Kathryn, is a practicing psychologist in Calgary.

Paul and Carol continue to call Regina home, although, Paul notes, “When it gets cold, we go south. I commute back and forth and the rest is done by phone, fax and email.”

In the summer, they enjoy a cottage at the Lake of the Woods in northwestern Ontario (the Winnipeg connection) but still keep the family cottage in the Qu’Appelle Valley. “I grew up going to Katepwa Lake in the summertime and worked at a local beach and boat club,” Paul says.

They play a little bit of golf and enjoy the social amenities at the Wascana Country Club. Both keep physically active. “We were joggers,” Paul says. “Well, Carol still is. My knees have gone.”

Culturally, they enjoy shows at Globe Theatre and the Conexus Arts Centre, and going to the movies. “Mostly, we just like being with family,” Paul says.

Oh, and football. “We as a family have had a lifelong commitment to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Carol was Miss Saskatchewan Roughrider in 1963! We’ve attended every Grey Cup since then together, along with most of our children.

“Harvard’s 620 CKRM has the broadcasting rights for the Roughrider games,” Paul continues. “I am currently honoured to be on the board of the club. Also, several employees and business associates have and continue to be actively involved in supporting the club.”

Favorite restaurants include Earl’s, the Lakeshore Steak House, Golf’s and Memories (and TCBY, of course, thanks to Paul’s addiction to frozen yogurt).

A love of travel

The Hills love Regina, but they also like to travel. They founded the Canadian Chapter of The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museum, a select group dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of the collection of art contained in the Vatican Museums. Money raised by the organization is used for restoration projects, such as the four-year restoration of the Raphael tapestry, St. Paul in Prison.

“Now we are restoring a necropolis under the Vatican parking lot that has perfectly preserved tombs going back to the period from 200 BC to 400 AD,” Paul says. “There are stories about persons, one of whom ran the chariot races for Emperor Nero. Other stories include a description of the daily lives of ordinary people of their times. It’s fascinating. Every two years we take the Canadian chapter to Rome for a full agenda at the Vatican.

“We like Hawaii, of course, everybody does,” Paul continues. “The last three or four years we’ve gone to southern Spain. We’ve learned very little Spanish, but we’ve taken in the history and culture of Spain as well as spending some time with its former president. We developed an interest in Spain and its history and culture.

“We’ve been most places in the world, but there’s one place that we’ve not been to that we will be going to this year, and that’s Russia. We’ll be in St. Petersburg and Moscow for the first time.”

Saskatchewan: A land of opportunity

The Hill Companies were created by entrepreneurs taking advantage of an opportunity that presented itself. Does Paul feel there are still opportunities in Saskatchewan?

“Absolutely,” he says. In fact, he thinks the opportunities are greater now than they have ever been in his lifetime, because at various times in Saskatchewan’s history, “it was very difficult for a company to start and survive during various points in its history,” he notes.

“The wars and the ’30s were very difficult economic times. After the war, in the 1950s, business faced the challenge of the Tommy Douglas government and the CCF manifesto, which called for the total eradication of capitalism. Many companies either left the province or were taken over by the government. One of those companies was ours, Saskatchewan Guaranty and Fidelity, the predecessor to Western Surety Company, which was managed by the predecessor to Harvard Western Insurance. In spite of this we stayed and remained committed.”

But, he says, “The negative aspects of the socialist environment have slowly been removed over time. Successive governments of the province have moved toward encouraging the private sector to grow and develop as well as encouraging the expansion and exploration of the resource sector toward its full potential. It is also becoming a more competitive jurisdiction to attract business and jobs.

“The province is moving in the right direction. The Hill Companies hope to continue contributing to the growth of this great province and at the same time focus on improving the lives of the people who live here. We will maintain our entrepreneurial philosophy, while practicing our principles and values within the context of lessons learned from the past.

“I am optimistic and have great faith in the future of The Hill Companies and our province. I believe our enterprise will continue to enjoy the success brought about by dedicated employees and partners.”

Enjoy!

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Premier Brad Wall: “The luckiest guy in the country in terms of a job!”

By Edward Willett

(Originally published in Fine Lifestyles Regina, Fall, 2009.)

Brad Wall fully realizes that as premier, he has to represent the entire province—but he still hopes people will understand, if they see him at a Western Hockey League game between the Swift Current Broncos and the Regina Pats, why he might be wearing a Broncos jersey.

“Swift Current is home,” Wall says on the phone from (where else?) Swift Current. “Here, I’m just Brad. At the Legislature, no matter how much I tell them that ‘Brad’ is fine, it’s Mr. Wall, or Premier.

“Here, that’s just the way it is. I have a different job, but I’m still Brad, the same guy that grew up here. There’s a familiarity that is kind of a comfort when I’m here in Swift Current.”

But, he hastens to add, “Tami and I have always loved Regina.” They used to live in the city, owning a condo here, and they were married at Westhill Baptist Church. “I like the people in Regina. And Regina has absolutely everything to offer: there’s a lot to do, everything from the arts to, obviously, sport.” And though he might cheer for the Broncos, he’s also a football fan, “so there’s an obvious magnetism that Regina has.”

Among the city’s highlights for Wall is Wascana Centre “We take it for granted,” he says. “It is breathtaking. It’s absolutely a jewel…and I get to work there every day.

He remembers that when he was elected premier, he was shown his private parking space in back of the Legislative Building. He elected to give that up to a staff person so he could park in the front. “Walking up the steps into that entrance right in the middle of Wascana Park, it’s quite an honor.”

Family life
Wall and his wife, Tami, met in Saskatoon in 1984 when they were both students at the University of Saskatchewan. “We met on campus…I was a second-year arts and science student, she was a first-year engineering student. The pursuit began.” He adds, “It struck me that when arts and science students date engineers, there may not be many dates, because engineers are busy!”

They were married in 1991. By 1993 Wall, who completed university with an honours degree in Public Administration and an advanced certificate in Political Studies, was hired as Director of Business Development for the City of Swift Current.

Elected to the Legislative Assembly as MLA for Swift Current in 1999 and re-elected in 2003, Wall became leader of the Saskatchewan Party, then the Official Opposition, in 2004, and led the party to a majority government in the 2007 election.

Wall has three children, Megan, Colter and Faith, and he admits family life can be a challenge when you’re a provincial premier. “When I first ran I talked to two former MLAs,” he says, both of whom had families. “I asked, ‘Can I be a good dad and a good husband and do this?’”

Their answer, he says, was that in their experience the answer is yes; but that “it’s a matter of will, a matter of priority.”

“Yes, you’re going to miss a ball game, miss a recital, but perhaps not much more than if you had another vocation,” Wall says. “We just work hard at it all. I keep checking with the family, they’re OK with it. We’ve just managed to work it out.”

Megan, Wall’s oldest daughter, is 15, and has just started Grade 11; Colter, who’s 14, has just started Grade 9; and Faith, who is 10, is in Grade 6.

“We also have a neurotic border collie named Ezekiel,” Wall adds.

Megan loves “music, art and literature,” Wall says; and in fact she could be heard playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on the cello in the background during the interview. “She reads and reads and reads,” he says. “Her part-time job is at a bookstore; she loves to be surrounded by books—and the employee discount!”

Colter, he says, also likes music. “He likes guitar and football—or maybe AC/DC and football would be more accurate.”

And finally, “Faith loves to sing, and plays music as well as being in sports,” Wall says. “She also loves summer, and she’s now excited about moving on to middle school this year from elementary school.

“And of course there is my wife Tami, who is obviously a busy mom, as well as a small business person and community volunteer. “

Fishing, golf—and muscle cars
Walls’s own leisure-time interests include fishing and golf.

“I like fishing, more than I thought I would,” he says. “My problem was I never caught anything.”

He also loves golf, but “it’s an unrequited love,” he says. “It doesn’t love me back, no matter how much I lavish my attention on it. The problem is it’s a five-hour game!

“We are spoiled for golf in our province,” he adds. During the recent premiers’ conference he took some of the premiers out to Wascana Country Club, which he enjoys very much. When he lived in Regina, he also enjoyed playing all of the municipal courses. Deer Valley is another favorite.

A much noisier interest of the premier’s is muscle cars. “I had a few when I was growing up,” he says. Now he has what he calls his “midlife crisis,” a 1967 Dodge Coronet 500 which he just outfitted with new mag wheels. He also owns a 1970 Chrysler Newport convertible. “There are two different area codes in that one, one for the trunk, one for the hood,” he laughs.

The man who owned the Dodge before the premier did some performance tweaking of its small-block 318, including adding dual exhausts. “It sounds good,” Walls says. “Colter likes that and I like it, too. It’s fun to drive around.”

Family activities
As a family, the Walls love camping and travelling together, with trips to Disneyland and Arizona among the recent highlights. “A lot of our family highlights are around great vacations and great travel plans together.”

They also enjoy exploring everything Saskatchewan has to offer, taking what Dustin Duncan, Minister of Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport, has dubbed “stay-cations” to places like Candle Lake, north of Prince Albert.

Of course, not everyone is interested in the same things. “Some of the family activities take members in different directions,” Wall says. “The girls aren’t huge football fans, but Tami and I are. We enjoy watching football on TV as well.

“Some of the best times we have are around the table,” Wall goes on. “My wife and I enjoy cooking together, especially in the summer.”

They try to find other times to enjoy each other’s company as a couple, maybe doing a “nine and dine” at the Riverside Golf Club, or going out for supper. “My folks live here in Swift Current and her dad is in Herbert, so we have generous access to help if we’d like to sneak away. We try to work in as much of that as we can, since the schedule is really crazy.”

And Wall’s schedule has been “crazy” for a long time, ever since he was first elected in 1999. Although it was less intensive then than now, obviously, there was a lot of commuting even as an MLA, and even more so as leader of the opposition.

Fortunately, Wall says, “it’s a great highway” between Swift Current and Regina, so it’s not very stressful to drive it.

“I can get a ton of work done on the road,” he says. If someone else is driving, he can make phone calls. But often he’ll ask to drive himself. “I do a lot of thinking. I still write most of my own speeches, so it’s a great time to be thinking about those things.”

Since the Legislative Assembly has afternoon sessions Mondays to Wednesday, with a morning session on Thursday, even while it’s sitting Wall often returns to Swift Current on Monday and Tuesday nights, if he doesn’t have meetings, so he can spend as much time at home as possible.

“There’s something special about your own house and being with family,” he says, and when he’s away, “I miss sitting on the couch in the basement. I miss home, the people who make home, my family.”

Favorite Regina restaurants
Over the years Wall has had the opportunity to explore a lot of Regina restaurants. “When I was first elected we didn’t have any members from Regina,” he recalls. “It’s amazing how much restaurant information you can get from a team of women and men who don’t live there but spend a lot of time there.”

Although he won’t identify a favorite, he did mention several by name, including The Diplomant, Golf’s, Earl’s, the Rooftop, Beer Brothers, and Tim’s Souvlaki in the Golden Mile Centre.

“He makes this great souvlaki on a bun which is a great lunch,” Wall says, joking that he’s not sure whatever it is Tim flavours it with is strictly legal, considering how addictive it is. During caucus and cabinet meetings they’ll sometimes call him up and say, “We need about thirty of these.”

The Willow on Wascana came in for special praise for the “amazing” meal they served the premiers during the recent premiers’ conference.

“I think Regina is blessed with both some of the nice chain places, but also some local places that you won’t find anywhere else.”

History and innovation
Besides great restaurants, sports teams and the arts, Regina also has something else going for it that is near and dear to Wall’s heart: history.

“Regina really tells the history, not just of the province, but of western Canada,” he says. He noted that the visiting premiers were impressed to discover that for decades the seat of governance for the bulk of the country, geographically, was right here in Regina in the old Northwest Territories Administration Building on Dewdney.

“I love the history of Regina,” he says. “It’s something we need to do a better job of telling.”

So, looking ahead, he would like, with support from all levels of government, to see the city fully develop its heritage assets, which, he says, “rival anything else in the country.”

“We don’t have 400 years of history like they do in Quebec, but we have very compelling history, much of which unfolded in Regina as the result of the settlement of the west.”

But he’d also like to see Regina recognized as a hotbed of innovation. “The world knows Regina for another reason, the Petroleum Research Centre, the international center for carbon-capture monitoring and science,” he says. “As the world tries to find some long-term and more immediate ways to deal with carbon, they’re going to be drawn to Regina. We need to build on that. In 10 years, I’d like to see us continuing this leadership position, developing clean and alternative sources of energy.”

In fact, he says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next while we see some senior elected officials from the United States come see what’s happening here.”

He’d also like to see Regina grow in the next 10 years, part and parcel of his hope that Saskatchewan as a province might reach 1.1 million people inside of a decade. “A growing population is indicative of continued strength of the economy. The more taxpayers you have, hopefully paying a lower level of tax, the more things they can fund.” He calls the idea of a bigger tax base leading to a better quality of life, which in turn draws more people to the province, a “virtuous circle.” He’d also like to see the province debt-free in that time.

“The luckiest guy in the country”
As for his own (he hopes distant) future, Wall jokes that he has three post-politics dream jobs: Canadian ambassador to Washington, CFL commissioner—or a voice-over man for Disney. “That would be fun!”

In the meantime, though, he loves the job he has, and the people he works for—the people of Saskatchewan.

During the premiers’ conference, he says, he heard many comments from the visiting officials from other provinces about how friendly the people they met in Regina were. They liked the great food, they appreciated the beauty of the Legislative Building, Wall says, “they liked all that, but what made me proudest was the comments about the people.

“Increasingly, you don’t have to explain as much about where Saskatchewan is or where Regina might be. People understand, they read the same reports about the economy. People are seeing we have the lowest unemployment stats in the country, or Regina leading the country in terms of employment figures.”

He points to recent stories about Saskatchewan on CNN and in Fortune magazine. “People are talking about our province, so they’re talking and reflecting on the capitol. I’m the luckiest guy in the country in terms of a job, and I get to do that job in Regina.

“It’s an honor. What a great place to work!”

The story begins:

The term freelance was first used by Sir Walter Scott to describe a medieval mercenary warrior, (a “free-lance”) in his novel Ivanhoe. The freelance would fight for whoever needed him. Science journalist, biographer, critic, singer, actor, and Aurora-award winning author of science fiction and fantasy Edward Willett is a freelance if ever there was one.

Oct. 20 the Regina-based writer paid Nipawin a visit, speaking to Ms. Grandfield’s seventh grade class at Central Park library’s Alex Wright conference room. Willett talked about writing, art, and creativity, burst into song on one occasion, and described how his own childhood motivated him to become a writer.

Read the whole thing!