Winnipeg careers, success in parallel

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This article was published 07/08/2024 (615 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott MacKay and Peter George both grew up, as MacKay would say, on the mean streets of River Heights.

A year apart in age (George is 62, MacKay 61), they negotiated their way into business ownership in the early 1990s and then leadership in their respective industries — MacKay as founder and CEO of Probe Research; George as co-founder of Taylor-George then, after merging with McKim in the mid 2000s, the head of that advertising/marketing firm (which changed its name to Show and Tell Agency last year).

They ended up doing business together through the entirety of their careers, with Probe doing market research for George and his clients. They became business friends, then social friends and ended up with summer places near each other.

Then they negotiated the sales of their respective businesses — both to long time colleagues/partners — earlier this summer, closing the deals just days apart. They even used the same lawyer.

“We both went to Kelvin (High School), we both knew the same people,” said George. “It’s one of those weird kind of Winnipeg/River Heights coincidental things.”

You could also say their career trajectories were also a weird kind of Winnipeg thing.

MacKay only had one job after he finished university and before founding Probe Research: at the old Angus Reid Group, a national polling firm based in Winnipeg at the time.

MacKay was the one who took calls from local would-be customers who had to be turned down because of Angus Reid’s focus on national clients.

“I had an idea there might be a business to service those local organizations who were looking for quality market research,” he said.

George started his career with one desire: to be a freelance graphic designer.

He credits the dedication of industry professionals and the decency of the Winnipeg business community for his longevity, and the good luck to have a partner to buy him out at the end. “You don’t get rich being a graphic designer working in advertising. You really have to cash out. You have to sell.”

”I could not have built a business like this in a place like Toronto.”–Peter George

To his good fortune, MacKay realized not long after starting Probe that he really liked the business side as much as the social science side.

“I liked the idea of trying to steadily grow a business, employing a few more people, all the personalities involved and the challenges,” he said. “I didn’t know I had that in me.”

MacKay sold his business to Probe principals Mary Agnes Welch and Curtis Brown.

George sold his to Marty Fisher, former head of Sherpa Marketing, a digital marketing agency that merged with McKim in 2021. (George had merged his former firm with McKim Cringan in 2006.)

Their career stories are also distinctive Winnipeg stories in that, not unlike the rest of the world, technology reshaped their industries. However, unlike many of their peers elsewhere, the two were able to forge ahead, retain the skilled characters they needed and keep their companies intact.

“Winnipeg is really a great place to build a business,” said George. “I could not have built a business like this in a place like Toronto. There’s just way too many competitors … Winnipeg is a little bit of an insular community, which is helpful to get a business to scale up in the early days.”

The original idea for starting Probe was to provide the kind of market research to local clients that had previously only been available to national players.

Probe has always had competition in Manitoba, such as Prairie Research Associates and Leger (which grew out of Western Opinion Research). But it’s not like there was blood spilled in the process of bidding for work.

“One of us wins. We shake hands and move on,” MacKay said. “Maybe we get it the next time.”

Probe once owned 50 per cent of a call centre, but the rise of cellphones and online surveying forced MacKay to exit that business a decade ago.

George’s tools at his first job were a drawing table, some markers and an X-Acto blade.

The digital world changed the tools completely — wiping out some suppliers along the way — but the need for both market research and branding and marketing services has likely grown.

“The demand has been very constant,” said MacKay.

Organizations, product manufacturers, political parties, etc., will always want to gather primary information about how people feel about something. “But the way you go about acquiring accurate reflections of this information has changed profoundly,” he said.

Both men said they’re retiring because of opportunity — they had business partners who wanted to buy. Neither were burned out or tired of business challenges that had become too prickly.

“It’s not that I am exhausted or anything,” said MacKay. “I had a good run. The company is going to have a good future. I’m really happy about the whole thing.”

While George expressed a “sense of ease” knowing he’ll not have to have to face the “seismic changes that are coming” with the rise of artificial intelligence tools, he also said it is an amazing opportunity for the industry.

That such good fortune would befall two guys whose careers ran in parallel might make them think this is the way it happens for everyone.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca