Doug Schindel—Forging growth in the steel industry

That’s right. I was working at a steel supplier and Weldco was a customer. They had a job opening for an engineer that looked interesting and so I applied and got it. This was 1973. I retired in 2015 after working my way up to president.

I stayed because I really enjoyed what I was doing. I was also advancing a little bit every year. I started designing equipment parts then moved into management positions and there were always opportunities to go further.

It was 2001, the year after I became president. I hired a new CFO who said to me that he wanted to do his MBA at AU and asked if I’d pay for it. We worked out an arrangement, and after he signed up and was accepted he came to me and said, “Why don’t you do it, too?” I thought I’d try and I found it really enjoyable.

Yeah, that is interesting, but it helped in a lot of ways. One thing it showed me was what I had a natural affinity for and what I was clearly not very good at. For example, human resources is not my thing, but I did learn the importance of doing it well. I realized that if I’m not good at it then I better find someone who is, and so I did find someone who was extremely talented at it.

I also learned about the importance of post-secondary learning and I met a lot of people. At one time I had 4 other AU MBA grads working for me. I also discovered that because I entered the program later in life, I had a better sense of what I needed to learn and where the gaps were—and I had more incentive to learn.

I believe it did. I can’t point to 1 specific thing because an MBA touches a bit of everything you do as a senior executive, from strategic planning to financial management. It improved my business acumen, my decision making, my risk tolerance, and it gave me more confidence.

My team and I grew the business by 250% within about 5 years. The Alberta economy was starting to take off then, so that helped, but we also developed new products, expanding into the U.S. and Ontario, bought businesses, so it was a lot of expansion.

I believe that education is key to correcting a lot of the shortfalls we see in our communities today. It’s not just a post-secondary education, but education in general. If we can find a way to improve the level of education, then that will be better for everyone. We’re a governance board, but we do give guidance to senior executives and the president and I think we do a good job.

I’m enjoying it. I have 4 grandchildren so I’m having a lot of fun with them. I’m also still designing things—built a little backhoe for a tractor and steel gates to my house. It’s a good time.