It was a real pleasure to meet with and interview John Wright. John Wright is a third generation Calgarian and a third generation oil man. John's worked throughout North America and South America, in the exploration and production end of the oil and gas industry for the past 40 years. He's currently semi retired and chairs the boards of two international energy companies, Alvopetrol operating in Brazil and Touchstone operating in Trinidad and Tobago. As well as pursuing a global renewable fuel concept through Rainforest Energy, Inc., where John is a director. He also has a various roles in private oil and gas opportunities in Western Canada. He's married with five kids and is my wife's cousin. John's grandfather came to Calgary from Prince Edward Island in 1906. It was a fun interview with John and getting to know about John's history.
00:00 - Trailer
00:38 - Intro
02:31 - Meet John Wright
03:16 - When Bryon moved to Calgary
04:01 - When John's grandfather moved to Calgary
04:51 - John's background
06:15 - What most strikes John about living in Calgary
08:17 - John's early real estate decisions
11:51 - George Wright's (John's grandfather) history in the oil industry
15:39 - The boom-bust economy. How do you cope?
18:25 - John's 5-10 year forecast
21:35 - Proudest career moments and regrets
24:32 - If you're not in the oil business, what would you want to do?
26:00 - Noli illegitimus non carborundum
27:49 - Outro
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Bryon: Hey everyone. My name is Brian Howard. I'm a Calgary realtor who has sold an average of a house a week since moving to this great city in 2003. And this is Calgary living. I'm interviewing Calgary's top performers as it relates to living and lifestyle in our great city. Some of the podcasts will be real estate decisions specific, but most will be about life in Calgary.
And why we choose to live here or at least why you should visit. Thanks for tuning in .
Bryon: It was a real pleasure to meet with and interview my, I want to say my cousin-in-law, I guess that actually is what he is. I suppose, just friend. I had the great pleasure of meeting with John Wright. John Wright is a third generation Calgarian and a third generation oil man. John's worked throughout North America and South America, in the exploration and production end of the oil and gas industry for the past 40 years.
He's currently semi retired and chairs the boards of two international energy companies, Alvopetrol operating in Brazil and Touchstone operating in Trinidad and Tobago. As well as pursuing a global renewable fuel concept through Rainforest Energy, Inc., where John is a director. He also has a various roles in private oil and gas opportunities in Western Canada.
He's married with five kids and is my wife's cousin. I think maybe first cousin once removed. In any case John's grandfather moved to Calgary or came to Calgary from Prince Edward Island where my wife, Shirley Wright and I are both from in 1906. And there's scum stories about how his grandfather got involved in the oil industry that Shirley's dad has heard which John kind of questions that. But any case, it was a fun little interview with John and getting to know about John's history. Why he came "West young man" or why his grandfather came "West young man", and a little bit about my own history. About how Shirley and I came West in to this great city and great province in 2003.
So, folks without further adieu, here's John Wright. I hope you enjoy the show.
Bryon: Hey folks. Well, welcome to another episode of the Living in Calgary. Today, I am very happy to have a bit, I like to think of him as my relative, he's not quite my relative. But I have John Wright who is , I want to say maybe the first cousin twice removed from my wife, Shirley. Is that right, John? Do you have any idea about this sort of thing?
John: So, my dad and her dad were cousins. So, I think that makes us second cousins.
Bryon: That makes you second cousins. Okay, and maybe even a once removed or just second cousins maybe. Once removed, I think.
John: Our kids are once removed are once removed from each other.
Bryon: Right, okay.
John: My kids are once removed from Shirley.
Bryon: And it's a real pleasure to have John here because myself, many of my listeners would know I come from the East coast of Canada, Prince Edward Island. And all my life, like many had heard, "Go West young man".
And so in 2003, in my mid thirties, Shirley and I were making our home in Prince Edward Island. After traveling and after our education, we returned to PEI in 2003 or 1993, when Shirley was pregnant with our first child. We tried to make a life there and life was good. We had a pretty good life. But then for a number of reasons, in about 2003, so 10 years after deciding to make our home, where we grew up, Prince Edward Island, our life home. We decided to "Go West young man". And that was in 2003. And John's grandfather came to Calgary in 1903. Is that right? I have a book right in front of me. 1910, I think.
John: 1910 or 1912.
Bryon: Oh, it said, " George Thomas Wright moved to Calgary in 1906", according to Shirley's dad who wrote a book. And he made his way to Calgary to become one of the acknowledged pioneers in the great Alberta oil industry. Reading from George Wight's "The Surveying Wrights of Prince Edward Island".
John: Absolutely.
Bryon: So John how would you introduce yourself these days?
John: I am John. I mean.
Bryon: I mean, what do you do? Your elevator pitch.
John: My pitch? Well, I'm semi retired. I had a 40 year career in the oil and gas business and I sit on a couple of boards and I help up a couple of private companies around town. We have a 8 year old or sorry, grade eight, not an eight year old, near teen. No teams is crowded here. So we stay in town during, certainly during the school year. But, that's our life.
Bryon: Right and you don't forget about those others. You have five kids.
John: We have. We've got four off payroll. Eldest is Jake, he's turning 32 this year. He's a geologist, very successful explorationist in Latin America. And his sister, Kyle is a fashionista. She runs an online fashion business. Her brother, Sam is an engineer who's just taken on a new job working for Thermalean, in town here. Their stepbrother Martine, he runs his own businesses with an auto shop out right next to Callaway park, which is the place to go if you want to double the horsepower and triple the pazazz of any kind of European car that you might own.
Bryon: Well, you have quite a source of goods. That's great. And I just learned that Sam is a good friend of my niece, Laura.
John: There you go.
Bryon: She's an engineer as well. So John, maybe I just kind of jump in. What most strikes you about living in Calgary?
John: Well, so I'm a third generation Calgarian, and have had the opportunity to live in other parts of the world and have come back to Calgary after each sojourn abroad.
One of them was only to Edmonton so that doesn't count. I love this place. I love the people. I love the location. I love the mix of outdoor and urban. I particularly liked the business culture here.
Bryon: These days what are you finding easy in Calgary or hurting Calgary?
John: Well, it's easy in Calgary to find parking and it's hard to find a restaurant.
Bryon: Like all over the world, I suppose.
John: I guess so.
Bryon: John this is my 26th episode of Calgary Living Real Estate and Lifestyle. And as I told you, I'm really excited about learning about why people are here and what's keeping them here.
I guess it's been a year and a half now I've been running this show. And in a time in Alberta, that hasn't been the easiest for Albertans traditionally. And not only Albertans who are traditionally in a great industry, oil and gas.
Particularly as it relates to real estate. Could you maybe share a little bit your real estate decisions growing up in Calgary and some of the real estate decisions that you've made that have been particularly good or bad . I mean, and I'm maybe referring a little bit to the boom and bust economy of Calgary. And maybe not only you, but you know, your colleagues and friends that have experienced some of that.
Could you share with some of our listeners some stories on that. Maybe even relating to all the way back to '82, being in that bust. I'd be interested to hear your story on that.
John: Well it's the year after I started in the oil business. So, my career started outside of Calgary. So I worked in the field, working out of Northern Edmonton and up into Northern B.C. and then thorughout Alberta. But when I moved back to Calgary, was right after my father died, and I ended up purchasing our family home from my mother. I was the youngest in the family and the only one who didn't have an established home at that time. And so, I moved in there. Got married sometime soon after that. I can't tell you about the bust cycle, but I can tell you, I went through a little bit of a boom cycle and I made a decision that I was going to do a fairly massive renovation on the home driven entirely by the fact that the stock options in the company I was working at, at the time, gone through the roof.
And I was able to fund a really nice renno and I was quite excited about it. Of course those moments where the stock options go through the roof don't last forever. I didn't exactly cash in at a timely moment. So that renovation ended up taking a total of, I think seven years for us to complete.
By the time we got it completed, I had accepted a job to run a company based out of Ecuador. And so literally the last night we spent in the house was the first night that the contractors had left the house and we got up and drove to the airport that morning and never ever got back into that house.
So I renovated a house exactly to our liking. Never ever lived in it in its finished state. We stayed in its unfinished state for a number of years. Moving back from Ecuador, my wife at the time and I split up. And so, I had a series of different homes, as we kind of moved around Calgary. One of which just as a lesson was the second home that I had with a swimming pool in the backyard.
I can't believe I tricked myself twice into doing that. That was probably not my one of my wiser business decisions. Ended up in a heritage home just down in Elbow, I guess, in the Glencoe region right next to the Glencoe club. Which was a beautiful old home. You know, the sandstone. A three-story beautiful home on a large triangular lock that have turned out, belonged to the city.
It didn't belong to us at all. It's actually a city park was our front yard. After the flood that came through there, I think in 2005, I very quickly realized I didn't want to live in a flood plain. So we sold that place and moved up the Hill up on the Front Neck Avenue on eighth street which wherever we've lived ever since. Until about two months ago when we decided that we hadn't learned how to bake bread over COVID. So instead, we designed a new home and built out a plan to do a tear down and rebuild. And so, our forever home is currently a hole in the ground and we're living in a rental property. Shockingly down in the floodplain, right by the river.
Bryon: This is the rental, I guess.
John: This is a rental, yes.
Bryon: You mentioned, the flood and you actually mentioned 2005. Now, I remember around 2005 and maybe again around 2007 and 2008, there was quite a bit of flooding, substantial flooding. But nothing like the flood of 2013. So we're talking about that one of those earlier floods.
John: Yup, and that was enough of a lesson for us.
Bryon: Wow. Okay. Interesting. That's great. I'm going to go read back to George Wright. My father-in-law wrote this book and he currently lives in Prince Edward Island. This is a story that Shirley, my wife, has shared with me a lot. And we have a lot of fun talking about this story.
So your grandfather, again we've decided had moved to Calgary in 1906, according to George Wright, my father-in-law. He was working, according to this book, and I'm wondering what your account is on this. Because I was asking George Wright today about this story. He said that he's not so sure . You know, this is what he heard. And he's not so sure that people are believing it. So your grandfather was apparently, according to my father-in-law, was a clerking in a retail store when a customer was unable to pay his account but had an oil drilling rig which he was about to give up.
George took care of his account in return for the oil rig. In those days of shallow drilling oil rigs were very primitive. Not the elaborate costly rigs common today. The account was likely in the range of a few hundred 1910 dollars. Your grandfather, I think, according to my math would have been about 32 or 33 years old at this time.
And according to my legend, this rig was sitting in the middle of Turner Valley, the original big oil discovery in Alberta. There are no records as to when George left the retail trade for the oil industry. But in the 1930s, he was recognized as a leader in the Alberta oil industry. Is there a truth to this story? What do you remember about the first Wright. Well, actually the first Wright came to, as far as I'm aware, in the East coast of Canada in the late 1700s, early 1800s. And then, the first Wright that came to West, "Go West young man", came in 1906. It was your grandfather.
Is there any truth to that story about how your folks got into the oil business?
John: I never met my grandfather. So I don't know the whole story. I'll tell you the story that was passed on to me was that he was a clerk for the railroad. And I think a clerk, meaning an accountant. That's what they would term it then. And that he and some of his cohorts in the business got together and they formed a company called Commonwealth Drilling. I do know for a fact that he was a founder of and owner of Commonwealth Drilling. And Commonwealth Drilling kind of had a big, you know, as typical in the old business, a bust and the boom and bust and a boom and a bust and a boom cycle.
But I think over the period of time, certainly when my dad was growing up, I think it was primarily tough times. I think my dad was born in 1914. Lived up lived, you know, I think there was a modest life. But certainly there wasn't a lot of success in the oil business and those times. And then my aunt, my father's younger sister, Norma had the great fortune, I guess of sort of growing up. And she was born a lot later and she sorta grew up during a time where things were booming. And so I think my grandfather was quite successful through the later part of his life. And then by that time, my dad had established himself as a geologist and an engineer and was working on his own separately.
And I think they did a couple of little things together. But primarily, the biggest thing you can gain from the knowledge that I'm the third generation in the oil business is, there's not a lot of inheritance passed on from wealth generated in the old business. Most of it seems to appear and then disappear over the years.
Bryon: I wasn't really aware of that. But it sounds like, obviously your grandfather made his own way.
Your dad made his own way and you made his own way. Is that the typical story of a third generation oil man.
John: I think so. I mean, there's certainly some second and third generation oil families today who've been quite successful. But I'm not sure they're the rule.
They're certainly the exception in my experience. It's a tough business. It's a compelling business. We all love it, but it's not easy.
Bryon: Maybe that leads me into a question I love to ask. You know, as I came to West in 2003 and sort of as establishing my self in the real estate business. And making this major decision to invest in Alberta real estate, from what I saw. And started investing hard in 2004, and then all the way really a lot in 2007 at the very peak. But still I own basically residential real estate that is worth a lot less than I paid for it in 2007. So that brings me to the question of the boom bust economy in Calgary. How do you cope with it? And do you save for a rainy day? How does it affect your mindset? And as I asked that question to you, I perceive you as very very successful. But maybe with your colleagues and workers and staff and your kids . How do you cope with the boom- bust cycle? Or how would you tell others to cope with it?
John: Well, I think the concept of saving for a rainy day is one that most of us learn the hard way. Certainly I had the huge advantage of, as I said, my dad didn't grow up in the best of times. And so, my parents were definitely depression era parents. And we saved everything. We saved rusty nails in the basement.
Forget about saving money. I mean, certainly I came from that. I was also an early investor. I remember getting buying shares in Bell Canada and stock market investing with my dad before I was a teenager. Like when I was 10, 11, 12. I look at, at what our kids are doing and we're certainly encouraging them to be careful.
And I would say that this isn't necessarily for the better. But I think a lot of the exuberance has been run out of the oil business. It's not kind of a boomy kind of business anymore. It's just a business and it's run very carefully and it's run with a lot of consciousness about the bottom line. And it's no longer about drilling the big exploration wells, like gold mining is still today. You know, let's go hit the big strike. It's more about creating a sustainable long-term investment strategy that creates some stability, I guess. And the biggest instability we have to deal with is oil prices. And I think as we're seeing today, oil prices are driven by demand and demand is starting to come back and we'll have to see what happens in the world as we go forward. But my deepest hope is that whether demand goes up or demand goes down, the very last best place to produce oil is going to be Canada. And I hope the world recognizes that.
Bryon: Nice to hear you say that the last best place to produce oil is Canada. What is your best hope?. Do you have a vision yet of what would Calgary be in two years or 5 years or 10 years? What's the forecast? As a business person, you also think of other industries and even real estate, obviously my primary interest. Let's maybe focus on real estate in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. As your kids are getting up the age where they're maybe starting to think about purchasing.
John: Yeah. So 2 years is tough. That's too, too short. My view is and I'm putting my money where or we're putting our money where our mouth is. We're building here for the longterm. I mean, we're building our forever home that we want to live in for the next 20 plus years. And we're doing it in Calgary and we think this is a great place to be.
And to be fair, we have options. And so, we've chosen Calgary on purpose. For people who don't have options. I think that the economy is going to be a little bit in the hands of some people who don't understand what got Alberta where it is today. And by that, I mean federal and international politicians. You know, Joe Biden's planning on canceling the Keystone XL pipeline in two days here. That's a shocking thing for any of us in the business. And it's just shocking because it's the least rational decision he could make in our industry on a global basis. The Canadian oil is the last thing you want to interfere with. But our federal government hasn't helped in, some of these things. And they're certainly not out in Washington fighting for us. But I think I really believe cooler heads will prevail. Intelligent people realize that there's going to be a long-term demand for energy. Irrespective of what you believe is going to happen in the future of energy. There is no rational, there's zero rational forecasts that say we won't produce a lot of oil for the next 50 to a hundred years because we need it.
That bodes well for Canada provided we manage our business well. Alberta is blessed with great resources outside of the oil and gas business. The biggest one is the people and the workforce here. Hugely qualified, very well-educated , self determined, hardworking, people who haven't had a big boom and are prepared to work hard to guarantee their future.
It's going to be a good place to be. I think there'll be ups and downs. I don't think there'll be as many booms and busts. And the only thing that none of us can predict is there will be some massively disruptive technology. And I'm not talking about solar or wind or nuclear or anything. But something we haven't even imagined that that could have the potential to replace a big part of our energy needs and who knows what that's on the horizon.
That hasn't been forecast by anyone. So I think things are going to be good here. I'm a believer and the city keeps getting named one of the top cities in the world to live in every year and I believe it. I've lived in a lot of cities. I would agree with them.
Bryon: John, what are you most proud of in your career and your background in the oil business?
And similarly, what would be some of your regrets in this industry over the last years? What are some of your biggest accomplishments in the oil industry?
Man, that sounds like a country song to me. I'm not going to sing it. I think the thing I'm proudest of is that we've put together multinational teams with a Canadian mindset that have had great success in Canada. Great success in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Trinidad. And we've kind of been able to export a way of thinking and a governance and a stewardship perspective into the energy industry that's top of class. And certainly not just what I've done personally, but what the Canadian industry has done.
It's something to be really proud of. Regret side, you know, the old bumper sticker said "Give me another boom and I won't piss this one away". But I think I was always lucky enough to never piss it all away.
And I kind of inculcated that into thousands of former employees and family and friends and stuff. And I think that's something that you don't want to live a life with regrets. And I certainly don't think I'm harboring any at this moment that I can think of. I'll turn on some country channels and see if I can remember.
Bryon: That's great. I was skiing yesterday and listening in my headphones to most played music of the past 12 months or year or something. And it was quite fun and nice. But regrettably country music would come up about every third song. And yes, regarding to that question, we could make a song into that.
Well John, how do people reach out to you? LinkedIn I know is one way. Are you on Instagram or what's the best way for folks to reach out?
John: I am on Instagram. It's entirely to be creepy with my kids and their friends and the rest of my family. So I hardly ever post. I'm on LinkedIn.
I'm on Twitter and I do the stupidest thing. I retweet things because it's my personal filing system. So I can go back and read them. And next to no one follows me. So nothing I retweet means anything to anyone except, "Wow! I want to read this article later."
Bryon: That's a good actual strategy.
John: I've been to enough seminars and discussions and security briefings and stuff from various cyber guys that I don't post. Like that would be crazy. But, I'd love to sit down and mentor and drink coffee and push for some of the local businesses along. And that's a big part of my life these days.
Bryon: Excellent. Well, we'll include the link in the show notes to your LinkedIn profile. Is there a certain website that people would find you these days mostly or LinkedIn's the best way?
John: No.
Bryon: Okay. Maybe a last question. What profession, other than your own, would you have liked to attempt.
John: Okay, so I'm going to guess no one has made this response before. I would have loved to be on Madison Avenue to write ad copy back in the 70s and 80s when the printed word was such a big part of everyone's life.
I love the term rephrase. I love catchphrases. I'm always getting together with our teams and writing our value statements and our mission statements and stuff like that. And all of our corporate stuff used to be kind of labeled with some very particular words and I like words and that would have - if I had a choice that would have been a choice that would have made. In hindsight, I don't think of it. You know, I always wanted to be an oil. So I never really thought about that choice.
Bryon: Well, that's interesting that oil man with that sort of interesting in words and writing and background in marketing.
John: Oh yeah, I took English in first year engineering. And my English professor every time I walked in the door would say, "Oh, here's the engineer". And I was the only engineer who'd ever signed up for an English class during the four years that I was at UVA. And UVA had like 40,000 students so it wasn't like a small sample. So engineers aren't known for wanting to read or write, but I always liked it.
Bryon: So that brings me to one more question. I just can't help myself. If you had a billboard, what would the billboard say? I mean, Any thoughts on that?
John: It would be the - and it's not even Latin. It's a fake Latin phrase, but it essentially means, "Don't let the bastards grind you down". And that was actually kind of, you know, when we were working in Ecuador, we were dealing with all kinds of issues and local issues and literally gorillas in the Amazon jungle.
I went through five presidents and nine energy ministers over the course of four years. And it was a very tumultuous time. There's a lot of turmoil. And that was our corporate motto among the board was, "Don't let the bastards grind you down". Just keep working.
Bryon: Oh, I love it. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I'm going to use that. Thank you, John.
John: It's something like "Noli illegitimus non carborundum" is the phrase. And it's kind of fake Latin, but it's supposed to have that meaning.
Bryon: I'm going to Google that, for sure, and include it.
John: Right on.
Bryon: John, thanks so much for being a guest on the show.
It's really a wonderful to catch up. I mean, this is actually kind of excuse for me to reach out to you and catch up. So I do appreciate it. And there was lots of fun.
John: We're cousins in law so it's only fair.
Bryon: I think so. Something like that. Well, you have a great day and we'll continue to reach out and be in touch.
John: Perfect. Look forward to it and all the best for you too, Bryon.
Bryon: Well, that was a fun conversation with John Wright. Really great to sort of connect on my own family's history. And well since. I've had ends parts of my family that have come West for many, many years since really the early 1900s.
And they have always returned to Prince Edward Island and the East Coast. If you know, East Coasters here in Calgary and Alberta, you know, there seems to be a real fondness for back home. And so I know that John Wright's family, grandfather kind of broke that cycle. And John and his family are doing very, very well as a third generation Calgarian. And that's what I had hoped to do for my family here in Calgary when Shirley and I moved here in 2003. In any case, we love Calgary. We love Alberta and oh, that's a fun, fun reflection on our life here and how we came to be here and how well really Shirley's family and the Wrights, the John Wright family or the George, Wright, his father, came in 1906.
I really enjoyed that. Hope you did too. What brought you to Alberta? Why are you staying in Alberta? Do you reflect on that? And who do you know who might be interested in being on the show? Perhaps you reached out to me anytime you can find me on Instagram @Calgary_Living or just give me a call, shoot me an email.
Google me, you'll find me. And folks, we are looking for sellers and buyers to match. Who do you know who could use my help in selling or buying Calgary real estate?