Adam Waterous and his spouse are behind a plan to construct a passenger rail line connecting Calgary to Banff and repair it with an environmentally pleasant, hydrogen-powered practice
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It’s 7 a.m. and the recent cup of espresso in Adam Waterous’ arms isn’t offering him gas to pump Strathcona Assets Ltd., which he constructed from scratch to grow to be Canada’s fifth-largest oil producer previous to taking it public 5 months in the past.
As a substitute, the previous funding banker is sitting together with his spouse Jan and keen to speak a few mission that appears diametrically against the pursuits of the Calgary-based oil firm he’s govt chair of, and the oilpatch normally. However earlier than wading into that story, Waterous had a revealing coming-of-age story to share.
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He and a highschool buddy took the subway to what had been then Toronto’s northern extremes, caught out their thumbs and promptly caught a raise from a form, aged couple in a Cadillac who dropped the boys about an hour north of the town. The plan was to hitchhike to Banff, Alta. It was 1979.
“I assumed, “That is going to be straightforward,” he stated.
That burst of early optimism died by the aspect of the freeway in Sudbury, Ont., the place the chums had been marooned for 3 days ready for a trip. Ultimately, they reached the long-lasting Canadian mountain city with the breathtaking surroundings and abundance of outdoorsy stuff to do. Waterous was hooked.
A lot in order that after spending the summer time in Banff, he spent the subsequent twenty years attempting to determine the best way to get again and make it his dwelling. Jan, a Torontonian, likewise loved a youthful brush with the city, and was eager to do the identical. Immediately, the couple are the proud house owners of the Mt. Norquay ski resort and, regardless of their Calgary digs, contemplate Banff as their everlasting tackle.
However snowboarding isn’t what Waterous is thought for in enterprise. The 62-year-old made a mint doing offers within the oilpatch as an funding banker with Financial institution of Nova Scotia earlier than putting out on his personal in 2017 to discovered Waterous Vitality Fund, a private-equity participant that snapped up a bunch of small oil producers, creating the not-so-small Strathcona Assets.
Probably way more transformative and, on its floor, perplexing — given the origins of Waterous’ substantial wealth — than shaking issues up within the power sector is the hydrocarbon-tycoon’s plan to shake up issues in Alberta and North American mass transit circles by constructing a 150-kilometre rail line connecting Banff to Calgary and to service it with an environmentally pleasant, hydrogen-powered practice.
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That is it not a save-the-planet solo-effort, thoughts you, however a Waterous household affair, equally propelled alongside by Jan, a public relations whiz, who parked a giant company job in Toronto to maneuver west, and to a lesser diploma the couple’s three, Harvard-educated sons who, by the way, all have day jobs at Waterous Vitality Fund.
“With out Adam and Jan, the practice would nonetheless be probably the most talked about factor in Banff that’s by no means going to occur,” Mike Mendelman, a Banff restaurateur, stated. “There have been so many hurdles associated to this mission, and anyone however them would have bored with it way back and thrown within the towel, however they only maintain going.”
Within the days of yore, a part of the surprise of Banff was the journey to get there. Beginning in 1888, it was a visit typically undertaken by practice that delivered generations of vacationers to what was then Canadian Pacific Railway’s Banff Springs Resort, and components thereabouts. That passenger practice stored chugging in steadily diminishing grandeur because the city grew till 1990 when Through Rail Canada Inc., a Crown company that was bleeding cash, minimize its service to the mountains, slicing travellers off from Banff until they needed to drive or take the bus.
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Lo and behold, drive they did: round 6.5 million automobiles pull into Banff annually, in keeping with city statistics. That’s quite a lot of automobiles for a spot with not quite a lot of roads to accommodate them. Through the summer time vacationer excessive season and at factors through the winter, the resort city on the coronary heart of Banff Nationwide Park experiences site visitors jams, not on a nightmare Toronto-scale, however at a degree that’s neither a win for the locals’ disposition nor the atmosphere.
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On high of their aggravation is an acute housing and affordability disaster, such {that a} vacationer vacation spot that desperately wants staff to serve its greater than 4 million annual guests has nowhere for these staff to stay, until they occur to luck right into a studio house — for $1,700 a month.
A practice, in principle, would dramatically lower the quantity of automobiles and enhance the labour provide by attracting staff from stops alongside the road with extra inexpensive housing choices, or so the argument goes. It’s a completely common sense resolution that has lengthy appeared apparent to Banffites, Mendelman included, and but equally apparent was that no degree of presidency was poking round city to ask whether or not Banff needed its practice again, or whose accountability it was to construct, function and fund the road.
Enter Adam and Jan Waterous, two incurable doers with three inquisitive sons, and a zest for freewheeling household dialogues. The city’s infernal site visitors downside got here up over breakfast eight years in the past, and never for the primary time.
“You retain asking the query, ‘Effectively, what are they going to do about it?’ and it occurred to us, sitting round with the boys, who is that this they?” Jan stated.
In that second, the household determined the “they” could be them. Almost a decade on, it nonetheless is.
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Within the interim, the Waterouses, by means of the household holding firm Liricon Capital Inc., have invested hundreds of thousands of their very own fortune into the proposal to construct a practice. The broader points of the mission would contain restoring Banff’s historic practice station, increasing upon an intercept parking zone with 600 free parking areas meant to get drivers out of their automobiles and onto shuttle buses the Waterouses already function, and including a gondola service to whisk individuals from the practice station to Mt. Norquay’s slopes.
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Plenary Americas, a subsidiary of Quebec’s pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, certain appears bullish on the concept, and has signed on because the co-developer of the practice. The opposite accomplice, ought to the mission get the inexperienced gentle, could be the Canada Infrastructure Financial institution, which might put up half the estimated $2-billion building price. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith likewise appears eager, to the extent the province dedicated hundreds of thousands to discover connecting passenger rail service to Alberta’s Rocky Mountain parks system in its Feb. 29 price range.
It’s truthful to say not one of the above would have occurred if a few opposites, who’ve been collectively for nearly 40 years, had not stated sufficient was sufficient. Adam and Jan’s divergent natures weren’t evident once they had been classmates (in political principle) at Western College in London, Ont., however they grew to become clear upon bumping into each other in an elevator in Toronto through the summer time of 1984.
Adam was sporting an “Elect Brian Mulroney” button; Jan an elect “John Turner” button. Each had been volunteers for the opposing campaigns to be prime minister. A wager was struck on the result, and a lunch subsequently bought by the loser for the winner at Bemelmans, a well-liked Toronto hang-out.
“And the remaining is historical past,” Jan stated.
Adam bounces again from unhealthy information like nobody else. Simply moments after struggling a enterprise setback, he’s already imagining and planning the subsequent even greater success
David Potter
A part of that historical past, because it pertains to an bold, unsolicited proposal to get a $2-billion infrastructure mission in-built Alberta, revolves round Adam’s dogged persistence. Again within the day, when he was a wheeling-and-dealing banker, he had a status amongst colleagues for quirky boardroom displays, at instances relying extra on utilizing outdated film clips moderately than spreadsheets.
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“Adam is clearly tremendous good,” David Potter, who labored intently with Waterous at Scotiabank, stated. “However what actually units him aside from all the opposite sharp minds I’ve met or labored with over my profession are his resilience and persistence. Adam bounces again from unhealthy information like nobody else. Simply moments after struggling a enterprise setback, he’s already imagining and planning the subsequent even greater success.”
Jan stated her husband’s unbridled optimism within the wake of obvious catastrophe has been essential of their dealings with paperwork: a morass of purple tape, involving three ranges of presidency, and a solid of fixing characters.
For the reason that practice mission obtained rolling in 2016, the Waterouses have had brushes with three totally different premiers (Rachel Notley, Jason Kenney and Smith), seven transportation ministers, seven mayors and 4 communities, plus some mucky mucks from Parks Canada who, in keeping with the couple, love nothing higher than to say no.
“I hear ‘no’ as no, however Adam hears ‘no’ as perhaps,” Jan stated. “He likes to quote that line from the film, The Large Lebowski, ‘Yay, properly, that’s identical to your opinion, man.’”
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In different phrases, Waterous doesn’t get too fussed about opinions or the personalities delivering them, however stays targeted on the deserves of the mission. These deserves don’t require consultants in fancy fits to promote them to the powers-that-be. Adam and Jan present as much as conferences themselves, together with in 2017, once they first met Jeff Genung, the mayor of Cochrane, Alta., for espresso.
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Genung instantly warmed to the concept and the individuals pitching it. A practice would offer commuters another choice from driving, ease the burden on an overburdened freeway community, enhance labour mobility and entice extra vacationers to Cochrane — about half-hour northwest of Calgary and the hypothetical practice’s first cease — even when the sum of their go to meant getting off the practice to stretch their legs and seize a chew to eat.
The mayor understands the practice could be operated as a enterprise, with earnings derived from ticket gross sales and a three-tiered pricing mannequin, with probably the most luxurious seats reserved for home and worldwide travellers of means certain for some good instances in Banff. However he has by no means sensed the Waterouses had been in it for the cash.
“I genuinely suppose their curiosity within the practice is doing one thing that’s legacy, one thing that might actually enhance the lives of Albertans,” he stated.
Jan stated the mission isn’t certainly an act of philanthropy, although she stated there are a lot “simpler methods” to earn cash, and most contain fewer complications and considerably much less purple tape.
“Philanthropy, as admirable as it’s, isn’t sustainable,” she stated. “Our mannequin relies on the premise that the one approach to make sure that an answer is environmentally sustainable is to additionally make it economically sustainable.”
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As for the atmosphere, if and when the hydrogen-powered practice will get constructed as proposed, the road would monitor inside the current Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis Ltd. freight rail hall, thereby nixing the necessity to minimize nice swaths of forest and blast by means of mountains. That’s a excellent news story for the planet.
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However pitching a clean-tech transit line that takes automobiles off the street on the one hand whereas fuelling these automobiles and the carbon economic system on the opposite would possibly annoy just a few individuals within the inexperienced camp. Strathcona Assets produces about 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and the corporate plans to spice up manufacturing to 325,000 barrels over the subsequent eight years.
And but Waterous doesn’t see any contradiction between what he does for a dwelling and what he’s attempting to do for Banff. Portraying oil as a public enemy will get him fairly animated, and he argues that hundreds of thousands of individuals within the growing world die annually of “power poverty” as a result of they lack entry to low-cost gas sources to warmth, cool and prepare dinner of their houses.
The clearest path to remove these deaths, he stated, is to ramp up power manufacturing within the west whereas ramping down our personal energy-intensive hypocrisy by parking our automobiles, constructing and utilizing mass transit, and having power producers similar to Strathcona put money into applied sciences that may assist decarbonize the hydrocarbon system.
“We really suppose there’s a ethical obligation for Canada to attempt to double its manufacturing over the subsequent 15 years,” he stated.
Morals apart, a Calgary-Banff practice polls favourably with the general public, with 85 per cent of Calgarians expressing help for the concept. However there may be nonetheless loads of convincing to do.
Depend Sarah Elmeligi among the many skeptics. The NDP MLA for the area that features Banff had a protracted pre-political profession in conservation. She is reportedly not anti-train, however desires to see extra knowledge on what the impression on the atmosphere and wildlife corridors is perhaps and whether or not, say, an expanded bus service would possibly negate the necessity for a multi-billion infrastructure mission earlier than championing the trigger.
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Ready on feasibility and wildlife impression research requires persistence, however, in keeping with Jan, the couple dutifully take their “nutritional vitamins,” and, in keeping with Adam, they really feel like a few “youngsters” regardless of being of their early 60s. They aren’t going anyplace.
However simply in case, mother and pa have some backup. Liam, their youngest son, was 16 when the practice mission began. He recollects its humble beginnings at a makeshift sales space on Banff Avenue accumulating signatures together with his mother and father from locals in help of the practice. His mother and father carried the ensuing knowledge with them to their preliminary assembly with the Canada Infrastructure Financial institution.
Now 24, Liam is an affiliate with wide-ranging duties at Waterous Vitality Fund. Amongst his duties on a current morning was performing some monetary modelling for the practice. Jan stated her boys convey boundless power, spreadsheet chops and the insights of the not-always-car-owning millennial to the desk. Liam believes his buddies could be keen to pay between $20 and $30 for a ticket to Banff.
Liam describes his mother and father as a “humorous pair.” Jan is the calm one, the listener, sounding board and a sage giver of fine recommendation to Adam, the “China breaker” who is continually pushing new concepts, and sometimes requiring his partner to rein him in.
“Clearly, the connection works,” Liam stated.
Mendelman, the Banff restaurateur, delights in a narrative about Adam from across the time Strathcona Assets went public. The hard-charging tycoon and his sons flew to Toronto to ring the opening bell on the Toronto Inventory Alternate. And but when Mendelman bumped into Adam someday after, he glossed over going public and obtained proper all the way down to enterprise: “How was the snowboarding?” he puzzled.
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“Adam doesn’t appear to dwell on previous accomplishments,” Mendelman stated. “He appears far more taken with the way forward for Banff.”
It was now 9 a.m. in Calgary, and the solar was streaking by means of the home windows of the Waterouses’ metropolis home. Adam’s espresso was empty, however his day had simply begun. It was time to get to work as chief govt of an oil-focused power fund, however he was nonetheless keen to speak of hydrogen trains.
“What Jan and I are doing with the practice, gondola and intercept parking — none of those are our concepts — they’ve all been round ceaselessly,” he stated. “We all the time thought they had been actually good concepts, and like quite a lot of issues in life, that is all about leaning in and saying, ‘Positive, we’ll do it.’ Anyone has obtained to guide the parade.”
• Electronic mail: joconnor@postmedia.com
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