I’m third-generation in a ready-mix concrete business. I have an economics degree from the University of Manitoba and my CMA, and I thought that meant I was ready for anything. I was wrong. Credentials don’t prepare you for the soul-crushing weight of total responsibility.

In 2008 my dad began handing me the reins, a proper succession, done slowly. Three years in, in January 2011, he died of a heart attack. We were on the phone when it happened. I was 30. That year was the best year the company had ever had on paper, and the worst year of my life. I became convinced that the most significant thing I would ever do in my career was lose everything my grandfather and my father had built. I lived in constant dread that I would die young from stress, just like my Dad.

For years the business ran me. My identity was welded to it: if the balance sheet didn’t look good, I didn’t feel like I was enough. Most painfully, I was unhappy with how I was showing up as a parent. Then I joined TEC in 2012. Nobody handed me answers. For the first time I was in a room with people who had sat where I was sitting, and that was what shifted. I went on to build a profitable, dominant company and sold it in 2025.

Twelve years ago I was a genuinely angry man. I’ve done the work to become a curious one instead, and it’s the change I’ve learned how to help other people make. Today I support my family with chasing whatever lights them up. My wife is flourishing in her career as a psychotherapist.

My mornings start at 5:30 with squash at the squash club or CrossFit. I volunteer with Special Olympics swimming as a coach for my son’s team. I’m still working on my French, and one day I hope to write the book. Every Friday is date night, and we just marked twenty years. I’ve been where you are, and I’m here to help you move forward.

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