Lögberg-Heimskringla - 16.07.1993, Page 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 16. júlí 1993 • 3
lcelandic
farm boy
hits the top
Pool chief
weathers the
tough decisions
By Kelly Taylor
Growing up near Glen-
boro, a small, noble
village south-east of
Brandon, Greg Arason spent
his childhood like any other
farm boy.
He did chores, played
hockey and baseball and
looked forward to one day
farming on his own.
But as the events of the
late 1960s and early 1970s
unfolded, it quickly became
clear farming was no longer
an attractive option.
And a tight job market
didn’t allow the luxury of
being picky.
“I left university technical-
ly a half-course short of a
degree,” the chief executive
officer of Manitoba Pool
Elevators recalled recently.
“With the economic situa-
tion the way it was, it was
time to get out and find a job.
So I did.”
Call it blind luck or des-
tiny, but that job was as a
public relations district repre-
sentative with the Pool in
1971. It was an organisation
with which he was already
acquainted through his fami-
ly’s membership and his
father’s volunteer position.
Seventeen years and sever-
al promotions later, Pool
chairman Bill Strath offered
him the job of CEO.
“Working for an organisa-
tion like the Pool, if you can’t
be a farmer, this is the next
best thing to it,” Arason said.
“You’re working with
larmers and any positive
results we have are reflected
right back at the farmers.”
He took over as CEO at
perhaps the worst possible
time. Drought had decimated
grain crops in Western
Canada. Volumes were down
dramatically.
“At that point, we had to
make some rather dramatic
changes,” he said.
“We had to cut back in a
lot of areas. We have a lot
fewer employees — from
1,100 down to 800. A lot of
that took place at that time.”
Although those decisions
were tough, Arason says he
loses no sleep fretting over
the weather.
“In this business, you
learn quickly that if you’re
going to stay up nights worry-
ing about the weather, you’re
not going to last very long
because there’s nothing you
can do about it.
“You can make the right
decisions to help you deal
with the weather, but you
can’t do anything about the
weather itself.”
Strath, who hired Arason
after a cross-Canada search
for a new CEO, said Arason’s
bottom-up Pool career, com-
bined with his open-door
personality, stood him “head
and shoulders” above the
other candidates.
trath, who is now re-
tired, agreed it was not
the best year to start as
CEO. “He already had one
foot in the fire and the other
one was being rapidly put
in.”
For the 47-year-old Ara-
son, working at the Pool was
a continuation of a family
farming tradition dating back
to the 1880’s.
Back then, Arason’s great-
grandfather, an Icelandic set-
tler named Skapti (pro-
nounced Skaffti) Arason
homesteaded the family farm
near Glenboro.
“I feel a close bond with
the farming community. I feel
sort of like I never left.”
Greg Arason, now an affa-
ble, clean-shaven man almost
unrecognisable to people
accustomed to his full, black
moustache, went to universi-
ty initially gunning for a
degree in plant sciences.
But two years into the pro-
gram, he transplanted into ag
economics, perhaps a conces-
sion to his one-time ambition
to retum to farming.
But that was just as the
federal govemment was intro-
ducing its Lower Inventories
for Tomorrow program, a
Trudeau initiative to pay
farmers to take land out of
production at a time when
Canadian grain sales were
hurt sharply by a soft world
market and excess supply.
While it was a welcome
case of serendipity, joining
the Pool was not etched in
stone, nor was a job in the
grain business, he admitted.
“When I left
at a job with the police.”
rason credits his farm
upbringing for much
of what he is today.
“Growing up on a farm
was an education in itself,”
he recalls.
“I tried to balance trying
to be a help on the farm and
being an athlete and the
kinds of things kids like to
do—baseball, hockey, field
work at five in the morning
because I had to go to a ball
tournament.”
In his spare time, Arason
is seen mostly at his secluded
island cottage at West Hawk
Lake, building wooden deck
furniture, practising photog-
raphy or cooking.
Golf really isn’t a hobby,
though he does play, he said.
“I’m a business golfer.”
In winter, Arason plays
once a week in an old-timers’
hockey league.
“It’s good physically and
emotionally to be out and
involved.”
A seasoned traveller,
Arason has the typical execu-
tive stories to tell.
He’s dodged communist
insurgents in the Philippines
and travelled for 24 straight
hours to Odessa in the for-
mer U.S.S.R. only to find his
hosts had prepared an exten-
sive food-and-vodka-laden
buffet. He’s no fan of busi-
ness travel.
“People assume that when
you travel a lot, it’s a lot of
fun and it’s glamorous, but
it’s hard work.”
But one day in a near-
empty restaurant in Casa-
blanca, the native of small-
town Manitoba realised the
world is not so big after all.
“Our group was sitting
there having dinner and there
was only one other group
there and they were down at
the other end.
“This fella came over and
said, ‘Did I hear somebody
say Winnipeg?’ “
The stranger tumed out to
be a father from Hamilton
who had grown up in
Winnipeg and was travelling
with his family.
“When those things hap-
pen to you, it kind of surpris-
es you how small the world
really is.”
Greg Skapti Arason is the
chief executive officer of
Manitoba Pool Elevators.
Born: 1946 to Skip and
Edith Arason.
Educated: University of
Manitoba 1/2 course short of
degree in agriculture eco-
nomics.
Family: Wife Margaret,
sons Colin, 21, Cade, 20.
Quote: “In this business,
you learn quickly that if
you’re going to stay up nights
worrying about the weather,
you’re not going to last very
long because there’s nothing
you can do about it.”
Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press
Greg Arason’s grcat-
grandfather, Skapti
Arason, was a pioneer
of the Icelandic Settlcment in
the Argylc District of Manitoba.
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university and
was on the
job market,
jobs weren’t
that easy to
get. I probably
would have
considered
any job at the
time if there
was a career
attached to it.
I even looked