Jack Irving, 78, billionaire industrialist survived a kidnapping
Hoodoo
Quietest, youngest Irving was the mortar that held the three brothers
together
At 50, he survived a kidnapping, offering himself as hostage instead of
his wife
SANDRA MARTIN
July 24, 2010
http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20100724.OBJACKIRVINGATL//TPStory/Obituaries
There are only three times when a gentleman should be mentioned in the
press according to ancient etiquette: when he is born, the day he
marries and the announcement of his death.
With rare exceptions - his kidnapping in 1982 being a prime instance -
Jack Irving, the quietest of the late K.C. Irving's three media shy
sons, rigorously ascribed to that adage.
The billionaire industrialist, who had been in failing health for
several years, died in St. Joseph's Hospital on July 21 in St. John, New
Brunswick, the city he had called home for all of his 78 years. He
leaves his wife Suzanne, three children, six grandchildren and his older
brothers James and Arthur, none of whom was willing to break the pattern
to speak about him for his obituary.
Instead, the family owned newspaper, the Telegraph-Journal, conveyed the
message in copious detail that Irving was a man who was "intelligent and
confident, yet humble about the extent of his own accomplishment," and
who embodied "strength of character, vision and integrity."
Nevertheless, the truth is pretty close to that encomium.
"Very nice, guy, very soft spoken" New Brunswick French Fry king Wallace
McCain said in a telephone interview. "Jack was a very kind, gentle man.
I never heard anybody say anything bad about him."
McCain, who worked for the Irvings in the late 1940s and early 1950s,
before leaving to build his own processed food empire with his late
brother Harrison McCain, was very close to the older Irving brothers in
those days and has remained a family friend.
"I chummed around mostly with Arthur and we used to raise hell together
for a few years, but Jack was the baby brother," said McCain, although,
at 80, he is only two years older than the youngest Irving.
There was no rivalry among the brothers, ever, according to McCain. And,
despite, K.C. Irving's reputation as a tough businessman, he was a very
sweet man as husband and father.
"He was a tough nut," McCain agreed, in business, but not where it
matters most - at home. "I never heard him say a harsh word to anybody
in my life."
The three Irving sons inherited their father's work ethic, Presbyterian
values, well-mannered civility and entrepreneurial savvy.
Unlike the dissolute lifestyles embraced by the wealthy offspring of so
many self-made tycoons, they grew into the epitome of sobriety -
clean-living, family types, who worked hard and gave back to the community.
If they fought amongst themselves over succession or corporate strategy,
it was a secret more deeply guarded than the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
Nevertheless, it is generally understood that Jack Irving was happy to
take a less dynamic role in the corporate decision making.
The citation for the honorary degree he (along with his brothers) was
awarded from Acadia University in 2003 offers a succinct composite of
his qualities:
"While involved in many diverse aspects of the family's business, Jack's
special area of interest has always been building and construction.
Jack's levelheaded, common sense approach is often the mortar that holds
the dynamic threesome on track.
"His great ability to focus on the details - improving workplace
efficiency and productivity - has resulted in innovative improvements to
the company's various facilities."
Probably the most traumatic event of Jack Irving's adult life occurred
on a Friday evening in May, 1982, the year he turned 50. He and his wife
Suzanne were at home relaxing at the end of the work week.
Suddenly, Stephen Gerald Childs, 22, an out-of-work security guard, with
bubble-headed delusions of opening a health club, invaded their house
and shoved a fake .45-calibre Colt revolver in Irving's face. Childs
wanted to take Suzanne Irving hostage, but Irving persuaded the world-be
kidnapper to take him instead.
Thus began a terrifying ordeal in which Irving was bound and gagged,
driven to a parked van, thrown inside, covered with an old blanket and
ferried about town as his abductor stopped at random telephone booths to
make calls to the Irving house, hoping to negotiate a ransom of $600,000.
By 4 a.m. the police had tapped the Irving's home phone. Three hours
later, they had traced a call to a phone booth in the city centre.
Shortly thereafter they arrested Childs and freed Irving. At trial,
Childs pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 121/2 years.
There are those who say the kidnapping made Irving retreat even more
into the embrace of family and friends. If so, he never commented
publicly. Instead, he carried on working most closely with his brother
Arthur at Irving Oil.
Over the years he, along with his brothers, received many honours,
including induction into the Business Hall of Fame and being named to
the Order of Canada.
Economist Elizabeth Parr-Johnston met the Irving brothers when she was
president of the University of New Brunswick from 1996-2002. "They had
different interests, but they were definitely a team," she said. She
remembers Jack Irving as "bright, quiet" and "a gentle, capable, strong
individual," who read widely in history, biography and literature and
was interested in supporting research into composite materials and
engineering.
The other trait she noted was his dislike of the limelight. He was a
very humble, but very strong individual, with a very strong code of
ethics. "I never asked him to do anything that was wrong, but I always
had a sense that whatever he was doing was coming from his core
principles, and they were good ones."
After the patriarch's death in 1992, the Irvings had given a substantial
gift - in the range of $2- or $3-million - to build the K.C. Irving Hall
on the Saint John's campus of UNB. After complying with building code
upgrades, there was a shortfall of about $500,000.
Unwilling to ask for yet more money, Parr-Johnston suggested (in a
meeting with the brothers in Arthur Irving's office at Irving Oil) that
the university should quietly raise the rest of the funds from the
larger community. "They looked at each other - it was just eye contact -
and Jack said 'you will have to excuse us' and they left the room."
A few fretful minutes later, in which she worried that the project might
have fallen through, the three men returned and handed Parr-Johnston a
cheque.
"We don't want anybody else to have a role in this building," she
remembers them saying. "It is ours." That was how deeply they regarded
their father's legacy and influence.
Today the privately held Irving empire is the dominant player in
Atlantic Canada's oil and gas, forestry, pulp and paper, steel, media,
shipbuilding, transportation, retail and construction sectors.
The Irving name is everywhere in New Brunswick, from the bold red white
and blue diamond emblem on gas stations throughout the province to the
less visible, but nonetheless powerful, control of most of the broadcast
and print media in the province. The family's net worth is estimated by
Forbes magazine at $4-billion (U.S.).
Although K.C. Irving had abruptly moved his assets offshore late in 1971
and taken up permanent residence in Bermuda to lessen the demands of
provincial and federal tax collectors, his sons have remained New
Brunswick's most prominent employers, benefactors and residents.
Donald Savoie, professor of public policy at the University of Moncton,
was born in Bouctouche, K.C. Irving's hometown, so he has known the
family and its influence all his life. "Jack's passing gives New
Brunswickers pause to appreciate the contribution the Irvings have made
to the province, and it is substantial. I think what you are seeing and
hearing in N.B. over the past few days is just that," he said in an
interview.
"We don't often think about what they have done in the business
community - the number of jobs - but over and above that, they have been
present at the community level, endowing universities and giving back,"
he said, making special note of way the Irving family had invested in
rebuilding the culture, natural environment and ecology of Bouctouche.
"We paused when K.C. passed away and I think New Brunswickers are taking
pause again and reflecting on the contribution the Irvings have made."
As for Jack Irving, Savoie considers him a model of civility, who was
polite to "a fault" and a man with a "deep, deep attachment to Saint
John and the province." Irving's most notable aspect, when you chatted
with him at a social gathering or a meeting, according to Savoie, was
his ability to focus on what you were saying.
"Jack was just as comfortable talking to a carpenter on a job site as a
financier from New York," said Savoie, who quickly corrected himself to
say, "No, he was more comfortable talking to a carpenter."
The family business began with James Dergavel (J.D.) Irving, the son of
a Scottish immigrant, who bought a small sawmill in Bouctouche in 1881.
His son Kenneth Colin branched out from the lumber business in the 1920s
as a Model-T Ford salesman, and then became the agent for an oil company
so that he could sell customers both a vehicle and the fuel to keep it
running. With a $2,000 bank loan, he formed the Irving Oil Company in
1924. Eventually it morphed into service stations, bus lines, oil
tankers and refineries, all of which required his petroleum products.
In the late 1920s, K.C. Irving married Harriet MacNarin, a young woman
from nearby Galloway who was working in the Irving family store in
Bouctouche. They quickly had three sons, James (1929), Arthur (1931) and
John E. (Jack) who was born on Jan. 1, 1932 in Saint John.
Early on, the boys were inculcated into the entrepreneurial mould. By
the time he was eight, Jack was raising chickens with his older brothers
and selling eggs to neighbours during the Second World War. Beginning
with a dozen hens, they expanded their flock to more than 1,500 by the
time the men came back from overseas.
He attended Rothesay Collegiate, a private boys' school near Saint John,
where he was nicknamed "Gassy," according to The Canadian Press. He
played guard for the basketball team, captained the rugby team and was a
chess champion. The school yearbook, claimed his destiny was "$25-million."
After graduating from Rothesay in 1950, he went to Acadia University, as
had his father and his older brothers before him. After only two years
at university, he was summoned by his father to work alongside older
brother Arthur at Irving Oil, mainly on the construction side of the
expanding empire.
By the late 1950s, he was managing construction and engineering
projects, including building about 100 service stations a year, with
retail outlets and lunch counters, and other major infrastructure projects.
"He was the builder," Pat Darrah, a friend for more than 50 years and
executive director of the Saint John Construction Association, told The
Canadian Press. "Every service station, every bulk plant, and every
warehouse of Irving Oil you see in the four Atlantic provinces and
Quebec, that was done under his tutelage."
On his twenty-eighth birthday, Jan, 1, 1960, Irving married Suzanne
Farrer, with whom he eventually had three children, Anne, John and
Colin. By all accounts, a devoted family man, Irving also loved the
outdoors, especially the area around Passamaquoddy Bay, where he
purchased a large property. An avid kayaker and birdwatcher, he was a
long time member and supporter of the wildlife organization, Ducks
Unlimited and the Nature Trust of New Brunswick.
The funeral is scheduled for today at Trinity Anglican Church in Saint John.
--
Trout Mask Replica
KFJC.org, WFMU.org, WMSE.org, or WUSB.org;
because the pigoenholed programming of music channels
on Sirius Satellite, and its internet radio player, suck
Louis Epstein
: JACK IRVING, 78 / BUSINESSMAN, PHILANTHROPIST
:
: Quietest, youngest Irving was the mortar that held the three brothers
: together
:
: At 50, he survived a kidnapping, offering himself as hostage instead of
: his wife
:
: SANDRA MARTIN
: July 24, 2010
: http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20100724.OBJACKIRVINGATL//TPStory/Obituaries
:
: There are only three times when a gentleman should be mentioned in the
: press according to ancient etiquette: when he is born, the day he
: marries and the announcement of his death.
I thought that was for ladies?
(One wonders what the press would be like if all abided by such rules).
: With rare exceptions - his kidnapping in 1982 being a prime instance -
: Jack Irving, the quietest of the late K.C. Irving's three media shy
: sons, rigorously ascribed to that adage.
:
: The billionaire industrialist, who had been in failing health for
: several years, died in St. Joseph's Hospital on July 21 in St. John, New
: Brunswick, the city he had called home for all of his 78 years. He
: leaves his wife Suzanne, three children, six grandchildren and his older
: brothers James and Arthur, none of whom was willing to break the pattern
: to speak about him for his obituary.
But by being identified by name...
:
: In the late 1920s, K.C. Irving married Harriet MacNarin, a young woman
: from nearby Galloway who was working in the Irving family store in
: Bouctouche. They quickly had three sons, James (1929), Arthur (1931) and
: John E. (Jack) who was born on Jan. 1, 1932 in Saint John.
So he and Arthur missed being "Irish Twins" by hours.
: He attended Rothesay Collegiate, a private boys' school near Saint John,
: where he was nicknamed "Gassy," according to The Canadian Press. He
: played guard for the basketball team, captained the rugby team and was a
: chess champion. The school yearbook, claimed his destiny was "$25-million."
His brothers,as I recall,being nicknamed "Oily" and "Greasy".
: After graduating from Rothesay in 1950, he went to Acadia University, as
: had his father and his older brothers before him. After only two years
: at university, he was summoned by his father to work alongside older
: brother Arthur at Irving Oil, mainly on the construction side of the
: expanding empire.
:
: By the late 1950s, he was managing construction and engineering
: projects, including building about 100 service stations a year, with
: retail outlets and lunch counters, and other major infrastructure projects.
:
: "He was the builder," Pat Darrah, a friend for more than 50 years and
: executive director of the Saint John Construction Association, told The
: Canadian Press. "Every service station, every bulk plant, and every
: warehouse of Irving Oil you see in the four Atlantic provinces and
: Quebec, that was done under his tutelage."
:
: On his twenty-eighth birthday, Jan, 1, 1960, Irving married Suzanne
: Farrer, with whom he eventually had three children, Anne, John and
: Colin.
And there go THEIR names into the press...
-=-=-
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