Rice founder described as ‘gentle and kind’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/09/2015 (3902 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s financial services industry has lost one of its pillars.

Tom Rice, founder of Rice Capital Management Plus Inc. and a fixture in the sector and philanthropic circles for nearly a half-century, has died at the age of 76 after a short illness.

Born and educated in Brandon, where he also excelled as a junior hockey player, Rice got into the business in 1969 when he joined Crown Life Insurance Company. Two years later, he founded T.J. Rice and Associates, which began as an independent insurance brokerage but morphed into a full-service financial services retailer four years later.

This company became Rice Capital Management Plus, which became a publicly traded entity in 1998. In the spring of 2002, it merged with Toronto-based Jovian Capital Corp. Rice served as chairman for several more years.

Rice served on many boards during his career, including the Bank of Canada, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada, the Independent Financial Brokers of Canada, Co-operators Mutual Funds and the Brandon University Foundation.

Mal Anderson, former president and CEO of Rice Financial, who worked alongside Rice from 2001-07, called him a “visionary.”

“He was gentle and kind and would give people anything. If he wanted to get his way, he’d let you know,” he said.

“People have different ways of operating. He could figure out what you had to do.”

Charlie Spiring, vice-chairman of National Bank Financial, said it’s hard to think of Manitoba’s financial services industry without Rice.

“He was always forward-thinking and he had a great client-first attitude. He was ‘Mr. GIC’ in Winnipeg and he grew a great business around that,” he said.

“He filled a great space out there for nice, secure money. He was always trying to get that extra quarter or half a per cent for his clients. There was nobody better at that than him.”

Spiring said he and Rice had talked over the years about partnering on a venture but never pulled the trigger.

“That’s one of the disappointments in my career,” he said.

Rice is survived by his wife of 49 years, Dorothy, five children and a large extended family. A private funeral service has already been held.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca