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Lifetime Achievement Award

Created in 2001, this award celebrates an FCA’s entire lifetime of achievement. Candidates must be nominated by FCAs. To nominate a member for the Lifetime Achievement Award, FCAs are asked to contact the Manager of the Institute's Executive Office, Sandy Parcher, at 604-488-2602 or parcher@ica.bc.ca. The deadline for receipt of nominations is the second Friday in October of each year.

Lifetime Achievement Award Winners - 2009/2010 

By Michelle McRae, Editor

In celebrating the life’s work of an FCA, the ICABC Lifetime Achievement Award provides both recognition and inspiration—reminding us that one person can make a big impact on the world. That’s certainly the case with this year’s recipients: W. Randolph Clerihue, FCA; John R. V. Palmer, FCA; and David R. Sinclair, FCA.

W. Randolph Clerihue, FCA

“I think the Lifetime Achievement Award is a good idea,” says Randolph (Ran) Clerihue, “because it shows young people what the average person can accomplish if he or she is dedicated enough.”

True indeed, though it’s unlikely that anyone would use the word “average” to describe Ran. This is an individual whose business and people skills, combined with a knack for choosing the right roles and a willingness to take risks, enabled him to lead a remarkable career in the big leagues of business, while at the same time giving back to the business sector, the CA profession, and the community.

Despite growing up during the Depression, Ran never lacked for opportunities. A member of the Air Cadets, an organization his father, Victor Clerihue, FCA, helped found, Ran excelled as a pilot and achieved a private rating while still a teenager. He employed these skills during the Second World War, serving as a pilot flying officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) overseas from 1942 to 1945.

After the war, Ran remained in the RCAF reserves, and earned his commercial pilot’s licence and instrument rating. He received job offers from two national airlines, but chose to complete his education before embarking on a career. By the time he earned a bachelor of commerce from the University of BC in 1947, he’d set his sights on the CA designation.

As an articling student with Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. (now KPMG LLP) in Vancouver, Ran showed such promise that he received a job offer from the first client to which he was assigned: Port Edward Development Co., which later became Columbia Cellulose, a subsidiary of Celanese Corporation, New York. Intent on finishing his articles, he declined the offer, but it was not the last he would hear from Columbia Cellulose or its parent company.

After becoming a CA in 1951, he joined his father’s firm in Vancouver. While helping his father modernize Clerihue & Clerihue CAs over the next four years, Ran volunteered with the ICABC as a member of the Education Committee and as an instructor of CA students, and served as a lecturer and associate professor of accounting and finance at UBC.

By 1955, he was ready for a change.

“My father would have liked for me to stay on as a partner,” Ran says, “but I wanted to work in industry, with big companies.”

Columbia Cellulose put out another offer, but Ran again turned the company down, wanting more experience in industry first. In 1955, he joined one of Clerihue & Clerihue’s former clients at Peacock Brothers Ltd., an industrial equipment manufacturer based out of Montreal. After relocating to Quebec, he served as the company’s director and vice-president of finance for the next five years. During this time, he also served as a Council member of the Ordre Comptables Agréés du Quebec, and as a member of the board of directors for the Financial Executives Institute (FEI).

By this time, Ran had earned an impressive reputation—particularly for his skills as a turnaround expert—and this reputation led to his next job offer.

“My neighbour worked with Canron Ltd., a foundries and industrial equipment factory,” he recounts. “One day, he asked if I wanted to join the company as controller.”

Eager for more and different experiences in industry, Ran accepted. He worked with Canron for the next four years. In 1964, he became the president of the FEI’s board of directors. That same year, Celanese Corporation approached him again—this time offering him the role of VP of finance for Celanese Canada Ltd. in Montreal. Ran accepted, and proved so effective over the next three years that the company promoted him to VP and treasurer of Celanese Corporation in New York in 1967.

Three years later, he was approached by the Bendix Corporation, a major aerospace and automotive company in Detroit. Their offer to serve as VP of finance and a board member was one he couldn’t refuse.

“The Celanese executives understood the move,” Ran says. “But they told me they’d be back.”

And they were—offering him the role of chair, president, and CEO of Celanese Canada Ltd. in 1972. Ran accepted, returned to Montreal, and proceeded to make the Canadian company extremely profitable. His success did not go unnoticed, and in 1975, he was asked to serve as a board member and executive VP of Celanese Corporation in New York.

“I was the chief of staff at a time when the company had $15 billion in sales, 125 plants, and 44,000 employees,” Ran recalls. “Running big companies like Celanese and Bendix was very exciting. I had to make huge decisions.”

In 1980, Ran left Celanese to join Wabasso Inc., a textiles manufacturer in Montreal, as president and CEO. Over the next five years, he helped turn the struggling company into a profitable enterprise. After it was sold to Dominion Textiles in 1985, he returned to Vancouver, where he worked as a consultant for First City Financial for the next ten years. He also resumed his activities with the ICABC, this time serving on the board of governors of the CA Education Foundation.

“It’s a big risk in a career to move around so much,” Ran admits, “but in my case, it worked out.” It helped that his first wife, Gloria, who passed away in 1996, handled the many twists and turns of his career with aplomb.

“Gloria was very supportive,” he says. “Growing up during the Depression was probably a motivating force for both of us. I saw how some people made it through and others didn’t, and I made it a point to always position myself where I wanted to be.”

Ran offered similar advice to their daughter, Barbara Clerihue Carter, CA, OMM (profiled in the May 2009 issue of Beyond Numbers for her work as a commander in the Canadian Navy): “I advised her to choose a profession she’d be comfortable with. You have to give people the opportunity to make decisions.”

Ran followed this same philosophy both as an executive and as a director serving on the boards of numerous public companies, including the Royal Bank and Trust Company (New York), Tate Paper (Scotland), American Forest Products (San Francisco), Reunion Industries (Pittsburgh), Spartech Corp (St. Louis), which he chaired for several years, and Columbia Cellulose (Vancouver)—among many others. He also served on the boards of many of Celanese Corporation’s subsidiaries around the world.

In addition to his work with the CA profession and the FEI, Ran applied his leadership skills in the community by volunteering with St. Georges Anglican Church, the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club, and Junior Achievement in Quebec, and with the Country Club of Darien in Connecticut. He also acted as vice-chair for the 60th anniversary of the class of 1947 at UBC.

And then there are his decades of service with the Air Force Officers Association and the Air Cadet League of Canada. Ran has served as a director of the former in Vancouver since 1985, having previously served as a director and president (one term) from 1946 to 1955. During the 1950s, he also chaired the Sponsoring Committee of the No. 1 Wing Air Cadets and taught an instructor course.

For the Air Cadet League, he has served on the provincial committees in Vancouver and Montreal, and on the Executive Committee in Ottawa (including a term as president in 1987-1988). He continues to serve as a member of the League’s Ottawa-based Advisory Board.

Ran has received numerous awards for service, including a Director of the Year Award and Medal of Honour from the Air Cadet League, a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, and a Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of Confederation.

Today, in addition to managing his investments, Ran enjoys spending time with his second wife Lorraine. Together, they spend part of each year in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they enjoy playing golf. “Lorraine took up golf after we met,” he says, “but she has already won championships at our clubs in Vancouver and Scottsdale.” Ran, too, has his fair share of golfing trophies. His other hobbies include reading biographies and books on history.

To those who are contemplating a career in industry, he offers the following advice: “You have to be dedicated. You have to be supportive of the team. And you have to want to succeed.”

This recognition for his own success came as an unexpected surprise, Ran says, adding: “But I’m very honoured.”

Ran became an FCA in BC in 1988.

Photography: Photo of Ran Clerihue by Kent Kallberg of Kent Kallberg Studios Ltd. in Vancouver.

John R. V. Palmer, FCA

“Choosing to become a chartered accountant was the best career decision I could have made,” says John Palmer. “It gave me the framework, the analytical tools, and the discipline to tackle a series of career challenges. A lot of whatever success I have enjoyed can be attributed to my CA training.”

John’s career choice has also proven highly beneficial to the CA profession. An advisor on financial and financial sector regulatory matters, he has distinguished himself internationally by driving initiatives related to financial regulation, and is highly respected for his numerous leadership roles in public practice and in the private and public sectors.

“I was fortunate to have some extraordinary mentors early in my career,” John says. “Chief among them were Denham Kelsey [FCA], Hugh Smith [FCA], and Roy Burrell [CA]. They helped turn a fuzzy-thinking English major into a disciplined professional.”

The University of BC arts graduate articled with Helliwell MacLachlan, a predecessor to Thorne Riddell and KPMG LLP. He achieved the BC gold medal on the UFE, and became a CA in BC in 1969. Early in his career, John alternated his focus between audit and tax. He also worked for a year in financial consultancy with Thorne Riddell’s UK affiliate, and for two years in Ottawa as a special assistant to two Ministers of National Revenue.

In 1978, John became the office managing partner of Thorne Riddell in Vancouver and returned to audit, focusing on real estate and financial services. Five years later, while still in his thirties, he was given the opportunity to serve as national executive partner (CEO) of Thorne Riddell in Toronto. He subsequently managed the firm through two national mergers, and became the deputy chair and managing partner of KPMG in 1989.

In 1994, after being asked to serve as Superintendent of Financial Institutions by then Minister of Finance Paul Martin, John left public practice. This new role had him oversee the regulation and supervision of all Canada’s banks, as well as other deposit-taking institutions, insurance companies, and pension plans under federal jurisdiction.

“Canada was recovering from a deep recession in which many financial institutions failed or were forced to find stronger partners,” John recounts. “We took the opportunity to toughen up the supervisory process, and required the banks and insurance companies to strengthen their capital and provisions. These moves weren’t popular at the time, but they helped the financial sector ride out both the bursting of the high-tech bubble and the recent global financial crisis.”

After his seven-year term as Superintendent ended, John undertook an assignment for the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to review APRA’s role in the 2001 failure of HIH Insurance, the second largest general insurer in Australia prior to its collapse.

“It was a valuable learning experience that underscored the importance of good organizational design, technical expertise, and effective supervisory methodologies in reducing the risk of failures,” John says. Nearly all of the changes he recommended to APRA were implemented.

Early in 2002, he accepted an assignment as deputy managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (the Central Bank of Singapore), overseeing the banks and insurance companies licensed in Singapore. During this time, he also served on Singapore’s Council for Corporate Disclosure and Governance and on the board of the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority. For the latter organization, John chaired the Public Accountants Oversight Committee and helped set up the process by which the auditing profession in Singapore is now regulated.

After completing his work with the Monetary Authority in 2005, John served as a visiting senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, lecturing on financial regulation and financial sector development. He remains an adjunct professor at the School.

It was also in 2005 that John took on his current role as chair of the Toronto Centre for Leadership in Financial Supervision. Also one of the Centre’s founding directors, John explains that the focus of the Centre, which is funded by the Canada International Development Agency, the IMF, the World Bank, the Swedish International Agency, and a number of regional development banks and supervisory bodies, is to help senior officials of financial supervisory agencies, particularly in developing countries, understand the weaknesses in their agencies, the changes that are needed, and how to go about making those changes.

“The Centre was formed in 1998 following a series of regional financial crises, based on the realization that weak supervision had been an important contributing factor to those crises,” he explains. “Weak supervision in a number of countries also contributed significantly to the global financial crisis, so it’s clear that the Centre has more to do.”

With these same goals in mind, John continues to write and lecture on financial sector topics and carry out assignments for international organizations and national authorities such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and the Asian Development Bank.

Over the years, John has served on numerous other boards and committees, both in Canada and internationally. These include the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, the Financial Stability Forum, the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, and the Panel of Senior Advisors to the Auditor General of Canada. Early in his career, he also lectured on tax matters for ICABC tax courses, and served as a member of the Institute’s Professional Conduct Enquiry and Government Legislation committees. He also co-chaired a CICA Task Force on the Attractiveness of the Accounting Profession.

John has also served on the boards of numerous charitable and community organizations, including the Learning Partnership, the Canadian Council for Business and the Arts, the Canadian Stage Company, ParticipACTION, the Vancouver Institute, and Crofton House School.

Currently, he is a director of Manulife Financial Corporation in Canada and a board member and Audit Committee chair for the Central Provident Fund in Singapore.

“I have hobbies awaiting my retirement,” John says, when asked about slowing down. “I enjoy my cottage at Georgian Bay, where I canoe, kayak, cross-country ski, and do chores. I also read extensively and eclectically, with a particular interest in biographies.”

John also enjoys spending time with family. He and his wife Adelaide, to whom he has been married for more than 40 years, have three children—Nick, Meg, and Ned—and two grandchildren.

As for the award for lifetime achievement, John says he was “stunned but delighted” when he received the news, adding: “It is an enormous honour to receive this kind of recognition from one’s peers.”

John became an FCA in Ontario in 1988, and an FCA in BC in 1990.

Photography: Photo of John Palmer by Lisa Lum of The Colourful Faces Studio in Singapore.

David R. Sinclair, FCA

An FCA known for his dedication to the profession, the business sector, and the community— particularly in the field of healthcare, David Sinclair has made a real difference in British Columbia, his adopted home.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, David originally had his sights set on a career in medicine. But when the Second World War ended, the universities filled up with ex-servicemen, forcing David to put his enrolment on hold for a full year. Eager to start his professional life, he decided to interview with a CA firm instead.

David was just 17 when he began a five-year accounting program as a paid apprentice in 1946. In addition to working a regular workweek and half-days on Saturdays, apprentices took classes five nights a week and completed weekly school assignments. The pay for the entire first year was just £30.

“There was a lot of drudgery, but there were exciting moments too,” he says. “And the experience certainly taught us discipline.”

After passing the equivalent of the UFE in December 1951, David became a CA in Scotland in 1952.

“The pay for CAs in Scotland at that time was abysmal, and the opportunities were limited,” he recalls. “I had a certain amount of ambition, so I decided to broaden my horizons.”

While looking through employment postings, David discovered that the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was looking for “young Scottish accountants.”

“The CPR was founded by Scotsmen,” he says, by way of explanation. “The job promised $300 a month, the excitement of moving abroad, and first-class passage by ship. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

“First-class passage” turned out to be a shared cabin for four in the bowels of the ship, but David didn’t mind—he was on his way.

His new employers didn’t waste any time—within two hours of his ship’s arrival in Montreal, David was put to work. “Surely that’s a record,” he laughs.

After just one month on the job, he was given an “all lines” pass for CPR trains and sent out West to Penticton, where CPR owned a small trucking company. Over the next few years, he travelled extensively across Canada, dealing with CPR’s many subsidiaries.

“It was a marvellous experience for a young immigrant,” David says. “I had the opportunity to see the country, and I learned a lot.”

Because of land grants that had been acquired to help build the railway, CPR owned substantial mineral rights in Western Canada at that time, and it was through David’s involvement with CPR’s department of natural resources in the early 1950s that he received a job offer to work in Calgary for Standard Oil of California. Although the new job provided a 50% salary increase, his tenure with the American company was brief.

“I found working for big organizations like CPR and Standard Oil a bit confining,” he explains. “I liked the idea of the independence of public practice, and I also liked the idea of becoming a partner.”

So in 1955, David changed tacks, joining the CA firm McDonald Currie (a predecessor of Coopers & Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP) in Vancouver. He became a partner with the firm early in 1957.

David led the firm’s recruiting efforts for the next ten years, and it was during this time that he also began volunteering with the ICABC, serving as a member of Council and the Bylaws Committee. He later served for several years on the Professional Conduct Enquiry and Public Practice (Management Consulting) committees, among others.

In 1973, David became the managing partner of Coopers & Lybrand in Vancouver—a position he held until his retirement from public practice in 1989. This 16-year period has since been described as the firm’s most dramatic period of internal growth, as it included the development of specialized professional services such as litigation support, business interruption insurance, specialized taxation services, and insolvency.

David also served as the leader of his firm’s Western Canadian region and was a director of its Management Committee for approximately 20 years.

Prior to his retirement, he was asked by then-Minister of Finance Mel Couvalier to serve as the Interim Superintendent of Brokers, a senior position at what is now the BC Securities Commission.

“The Commission was in a state of disarray at the time,” David recounts. “It was a very interesting three months, during which we dealt with the insolvency of a major investment company.”

His reputation continued to garner him interesting offers. In 1990, for example, he was asked to serve as one of six commissioners on Justice Seaton’s Royal Commission on Health Care in BC. After holding public hearings in approximately 50 communities and reviewing over 2,000 written submissions, the Commission made extensive recommendations to address the healthcare needs of British Columbians, and produced a lengthy report entitled Closer to Home.

“Our goal was to keep people out of the hospital as much as possible,” David explains. “I visited a lot of facilities and made recommendations based on the idea of providing more opportunities for home support.”

Passionate about healthcare issues—particularly with regard to senior and palliative care—David’s contributions to BC’s healthcare sector also include serving on the board of the Children’s Foundation, a residential treatment centre for emotionally troubled children, and on the board of the Parkinson’s Institute. The latter was a cause dear to his heart—David’s first wife, Rosemary, had Parkinson’s, and succumbed to her symptoms after a ten-year struggle with the disease.

He also served as a trustee of Vancouver General Hospital, and as chair of both the BC Cancer Agency and the board of the BC Cancer Foundation. His work with the Foundation subsequently led to board work with Triumf, a nuclear research project conducted jointly by Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta, the University of BC, and the University of Victoria.

“I had the opportunity to work alongside a group of physicists and research scientists,” he says. “I couldn’t have asked to work with a more interesting group of people.”

David later chaired the Finance Committee for the University of Victoria’s board of governors, serving in the government-appointed position for two three-year terms. He also served on the board of the Commonwealth Games in Victoria in 1994.

In 1993, he joined the board of Cominco as a director. David A. Thompson, chair of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and former CEO of Cominco and Teck Cominco, describes him as a “trusted advisor on a broad range of business matters,” adding: “His intense interest in business strategy and investment decision-making, plus his outgoing personality… made him a popular and influential member of the board.”

So popular, in fact, that in 2001, Sinclair was asked to chair the Independent Committee of Directors of Cominco that recommended the merger of Teck Corporation and Cominco. After the merger, he served as a director of Teck Cominco until his retirement in 2005.

Today, David is taking things a bit easier, spending time with his second wife Brenda (a former editor of Hansard in the House of Commons in Ottawa), with whom he vacations in Maui each year, and with his children and grandchildren. His son Rob owns an athletic surfacing business, and his daughter Susan is a “professional mom” with three kids (the eldest of whom is currently attending UVic, Susan’s alma mater). Both Rob and Susan are champion rowers.

David, himself, is a keen gardener, fisherman, and golfer. He belongs to the Victoria Golf Club and is a proud member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“With the support of outstanding colleagues, I had a great career, so this Lifetime Achievement Award brought back some fond memories,” he says. “I take pride in being a CA, and I’m grateful for this recognition from my peers.”

David became an FCA in BC in 1974.

Photography: Photo of David Sinclair by Deddeda Stemler of Photography by Deddeda in Victoria.

Congratulations to our Lifetime Achievement Award winners!