He lived life for other people

On the kitchen island inside Shirley Penner’s Tuxedo apartment, above the scattered boxes that chronicle her late husband’s life, is a small book with a freshly groomed Don McLean — her partner of 40 years — on the cover.

The book, gifted to McLean when he retired four years ago, comprises 50 heartfelt messages from people he met through business, basketball and his day-to-day.

McLean’s grandson had the unenviable job of deciding which messages made it into the commemorative hardcover.

There were more than 350 submissions from across the globe.

Peruse the book and the reader is offered a sample of the profound impact McLean had on those he met before he died on March 18, just weeks before his 84th birthday.

“His philosophy in life was, ‘It’s not about me. I’m here for a reason and I’m going to live life for other people,’” Penner said. “I appreciate the way he helped other people. He mentored tens of thousands of people, which came out with all these tributes. He was a mentor.”

In business, the Winnipeg-born McLean was known as a man who loved to work — something he did tirelessly in several high-pressure positions at Maple Leaf Foods, Tirol (an agricultural organization) and Long View Systems (an IT company) until he was 80.

A devoted subscriber to the Free Press, New York Times, Globe and Mail and several international news outlets, he had a steel trap for a mind and shrewd negotiating skills.

“What I loved about him so much is he had such a developed brain and he was such a reader, so he just sort of knew everything,” Penner said. “He was just a walking encyclopedia.”

When McLean took off the suit and tie, he morphed into a highly respected beast on the basketball court.

At six-foot-six, 225 pounds, McLean — regarded as one of Manitoba’s first dominant big men — was a behemoth during his prime playing years in the late ’50s to the early ’70s.

It was a sport he never seemed to give up. His career on the hardwood spanned 67 years across junior and senior men’s leagues in Winnipeg and Calgary, including being inducted into the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994.

As a senior men’s player, McLean played in five national basketball championships and was named a Senior “A” League all-star four times while winning league MVP in 1965. He also starred at the first Canadian Winter Games in Quebec City.

“He scared the living daylights out of me,” said Robin Fry, who had to guard McLean as a newly graduated high schooler, of his first impression in 1961.

Fry, who reconnected with McLean while both living in Calgary after 25 years apart, holds on to the fact that his team won that game, but there was more that he took away from that day and every time he shared a court with McLean.

“Toughness,” Fry said of McLean’s greatest quality.

Basketball was as synonymous with McLean’s daily routine as brushing his teeth in the morning. He was known to play through multiple injuries and illnesses and was on the local courts of Calgary several times per week into his late 70s.

“He loved the game. He wasn’t a great runner or a great jumper, but he was a big body and he always encouraged everybody — because as time goes on, your physical abilities kind of diminish somewhat — but he always kept working.”

When the time came for McLean to choose which direction he wanted to go in his working life, he opted for a more traditional career, even though there were opportunities for him to take his hoops career to the next level.

He quickly earned his stripes at Maple Leaf Foods, eventually serving as general manager and then CEO of beef operations for Canada, with 900 employees reporting to him.

McLean’s work is what took him to Calgary in 1980. Penner, who stayed with their four children in Winnipeg, joined him four years later.

As a boss, McLean embodied the most professional of businessmen. Bespoke suits. Groomed to the T. A strong handshake. And an infectious laugh that managed to keep things light even in the most intense situations.

Doug Paddock is perhaps among the most grateful of the thousands McLean mentored. Paddock, who was hired at the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Calgary in 1982, claims McLean took him under his wing as a young adult and had a profound impact on him during their 15 years working together.

“He was exceptional, because the bar with him was very high, in terms of everything he did,” said Paddock. “The suit he wore, the grooming, his speech, the way he wrote, the way he spoke to people, the way he did his presentations.

“If you wanted to see an example of how it was supposed to be done, you’d look at him, because it was at the highest level of professionalism. He was very good at it because he was the standard.”

At 29, Paddock became the youngest person to manage a plant in the company’s then 65-year history, besting McLean, who earned that same recognition when he was 39.

“He would take you to a level you didn’t think you were capable of,” Paddock said.

After a stint as president and CEO of Tirol, McLean was 67 when he took the job at Long View Systems. Work was what he enjoyed and so retirement was never on the table.

As he had done everywhere else he went, McLean climbed the ranks quickly, eventually serving as the company’s executive VP of corporate service and chief negotiating officer.

When he retired, his impact was recognized. Long View was a 400-person company when he arrived and a 1,800-person operation — with offices in Canada and the U.S. — when he left.

Don Bialik, the owner and president of the Calgary-based IT company, called McLean, whom he had known for two decades, one of the 10 best people he’s ever known.

“He was smart, he had great emotional intelligence, he was loyal, he was caring, he had a great sense of humour, he had great integrity, he had humility, he had a magnificent dignity and allowed others their dignity, he was a gifted athlete and most important of all, he had wisdom,” said Bialik, who, like many, met McLean on the basketball court.

“He was wise — the wisest person I ever met.”

McLean stayed busy outside of business hours.

Perhaps the finest assist of his lifetime came away from the basketball court as he helped Penner launch the Youth Singers of Calgary, a performing arts group that — in its 40th anniversary year — has 600 singers and thousands of talents under its umbrella.

Unlike his daily work, McLean stayed in the background while Penner took the lead on her passion project, leaning on her business-savvy husband’s input to set up the non-profit to be a smashing success.

“We were everything: friends, partners, lovers — it was an incredible union,” said Penner, who has received nine accolades for her work with YSC, including being awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2016.

“I wouldn’t have done it without Don McLean. We both lived very unconventional lives, so you have to be prepared. There’s no six o’clock dinner kind of life … and we both loved it and we were both built for that.”

McLean and Penner became world travellers in between their busy work schedules. Oftentimes, Penner would be in another country with YSC and McLean would join her at the tail of the trip and they would stay an extra week together.

McLean’s position with Tirol took him across the world for meetings. Penner said one benefit of her husband’s travels was that he would scout whichever country he was in to see if it would be a place she would enjoy and then later make it a point to take her there for pleasure.

It was yet another act of selflessness from a man who always made time for others.

“Both of us were the same. Retirement means we don’t love what we’re doing and we’re doing what we love. We just carried right on, even though we were getting up into our 80s. Work was our love and we travelled with our love,” said Penner, who was by McLean’s side until the day he died.

“What else would you want than what we had? We had the best life in the world.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca