Chester Johnson, FCPA, FCA, OBC, CMA

BC has been very good to Chester Johnson. The second-generation British Columbian started from humble beginnings and established a highly successful career for himself in the province’s forest industry. Many would say that he has been equally good to BC, volunteering his leadership to a number of significant public-sector projects that have helped shape the province over the last 20+ years. 

Chester describes himself, first and foremost, as a “builder.” 

“I’ve always wanted to run things,” he says. “My father told my mother once: ‘He’ll either be a millionaire or he’ll be broke. I think he had it right.” 

After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, Chester earned a commerce degree from the University of British Columbia. Soon after graduating, he decided to pursue a CA designation.

“I knew the CA would help me get where I wanted to go,” explains Chester, who qualified in 1957. 

Just four short years later, he founded Whonnock Industries. His drive, combined with his training, would serve him well over the next 19 years; with Chester helming the timber company as president and CEO, Whonnock flourished. 

In 1980, he agreed to sell Whonnock to Sauder and accepted an offer from the Ketcham family to serve as president and CEO of West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. Its corporate culture left an impression.

“The Ketchams were very good to me and to the staff,” he says. “I was very impressed by that.”

While working with West Fraser Timber, Chester was approached by then-BC premier Bill Bennett to chair the board of directors of the Whistler Land Corporation. The year was 1983: Whistler Land was bankrupt, and the municipality was in dire financial straits. Chester was given $21 million to turn things around as the leader of a group of dedicated volunteers. 

“It was a big job,” he remembers, “but I worked with a really good board.” 

The group met every afternoon at 4pm and worked into the evening every night for several years. In less than a decade, they reversed Whistler’s fortunes, turning it into a world-class resort and conference centre. 

In 1993, in recognition of Chester’s efforts during his six years as chair of Whistler Land and three years of volunteerism with the Whistler Resort Association, he received the municipality’s Honour of Freedom award.

“It wasn’t just me,” he’s quick to point out. “I was the ‘head,’ but the people on that board really did their jobs.”

His success with Whistler made Chester the logical choice when, in 1984, Bill Bennett sought a new chair to turn BC Hydro and Power Authority from a Crown corporation into a profit-oriented operation. The challenge didn’t particularly strike Chester’s fancy, but after the premier appealed to his sense of civic duty, he agreed. Accepting this position, which he held from May 1984 to February 1987, meant stepping down from West Fraser Timber and taking a pay cut somewhere in the region of $1.5 million. 

Though he says his subsequent four-year stint with Hydro was “not a lot of fun,” Chester successfully led the organization’s transition from a “dam-building company” into a profit-oriented one by helping to dramatically reduce operating costs and stimulate sales of electricity.

Other rescue missions would soon present themselves. 

After stepping down from BC Hydro, Chester was approached by Doman Industries Limited to help resuscitate Western Pulp Inc. Confident that he could help the struggling forestry company turn things around, Chester agreed to become its chair and CEO in 1987. By the time he stepped down from Western Pulp in 1993, he’d overseen a production increase from 350 tonnes of wood fibre a day to 750 tonnes. 

It was also in 1987 that Chester was approached by former cabinet minister Grace McCarthy and Senator Pat Carney to become the first chair of the Airport Authority’s board of directors. The task, they told him, would take approximately six months. It took nine years. 

Chester now counts those nine years as some of his most rewarding. 

“I’m proud of that airport,” he says, “and I’m proud of the people I worked with on YVR.”

As board chair, Chester was entrusted with overseeing the transfer of the airport away from the federal government to the Vancouver Airport Authority.

“I wasn’t interested in running an airport,” he says, “but I sure enjoyed the years of negotiation with the federal government on devolution. It was like the elephant and the mouse, and we were the mouse.”

Armed with a minimal budget and few resources, Chester successfully led his team of directors—each of whom donated their time—through a fierce, five-year negotiation process that culminated in the transfer of the airport to the community-based Airport Authority on July 1, 1992. Prior to the closing, he also negotiated a $425-million bank syndication loan.

By the time he stepped down as chair in 1997, he’d overseen the construction of a new runway and YVR’s International Terminal Building. 

For the latter project, he and two colleagues travelled the world seeking inspiration from other international airports. They were most impressed by the “street scene” inside the Copenhagen airport, and decided to bring the idea back to Vancouver. They later proposed that YVR’s street scene centre around a large sculpture by BC artist Bill Reid. But their idea to purchase “The Jade Canoe” sculpture, a version of “The Spirit of Haida Gwaii” (at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC), met with a lot of resistance from other directors. 

“I don’t blame them for their doubts,” Chester says. 

Convinced that displaying a major work by a venerable local artist was an important investment for Vancouver’s International Terminal, Chester continued to champion the idea. He won out, and the sculpture is now a famous fixture at YVR. 

In recognition of his years of volunteerism with YVR, Chester Johnson Park was created near the International Terminal he had such a hand in creating.

It’s one of numerous honours bestowed on him over the years. A small den at his home in Halfmoon Bay houses a myriad of awards. There among the photos of family and beloved pets, you’ll find the Order of Canada, given to him in 1992 in recognition of his achievements in Canada’s corporate and public sectors. You’ll also find the Canada 125 medal (1992), the Order of British Columbia (2001), the Queen’s 50th Anniversary Medal (2002), and a certificate announcing his appointment as an Honorary Colonel with the 78th Fraser Highlanders regiment of the Fort Fraser Garrison.

Though now in his 80s, Chester still keeps a busy schedule. Until recently, he chaired the transportation committee for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid, helping to plan for upgrades to the Sea-to-Sky highway, and he continues to serve on the board of directors of the Haida Nation’s Power Authority.

Each year also sees him spending several winter months at his vacation home in Cabo San Lucas. Ever the problem solver, he is currently financing the purchase of medical equipment for a local doctor. “There’s a lot of poverty there,” he explains. “They can’t afford proper equipment.”

Generosity seems to come easily to him. Perhaps it’s because money has never been the main draw.

“I always wanted to achieve things, and not necessarily monetary things,” Chester shares. “As I told my son Gar once, it’s not the material things in your life that matter. It’s the things you’ve done. The rest just follows.”

Chester also served as director of finance for Expo ’86 and as a member of the Economic Council of Canada, a federally funded think-tank that studied the country’s economic issues, from 1987-1992. He is also a former member of UBC’s Commerce and Business Administration and Forest advisory committees. Chester and his wife Doreen have five children—Susan, Garfield, Linda, Mark, and Janis—eight grandchildren, and a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel named Sammy.

This article originally appeared in the February 2007 issue of Beyond Numbers.