Why care about Pat Carlson? We do — and with good reason

He’s 70 and, by all definitions, a serial entrepreneur. He’s CEO and founder of Kiwetinohk Energy Corp. — the fifth energy company he’s launched. With a proclivity for perogies (his wife’s father invented a perogy pincher that seals 144 perogies in 45 minutes), he’s also a philanthropist. And he remains smitten with his wife whom he married at 19 (she was 18); he’s also the proud father of three, has six grandchildren and three dogs.

Meet Pat Carlson, once a burly 6-ft.-3 (he claims to have lost an inch and a half due to a summer job heaving 300-lb. beef quarters onto trucks) country boy from Lethbridge who came to the big city in 1971 to study chemical engineering at the University of Calgary. I meet Pat, BSc (Eng)’75, and his wife, Connie Carlson, BSc’92, at the Italian Farmhouse Restaurant in Bragg Creek and leave two hours later with a simple reminder: We live in an era with a serious deficit of folks like the Carlsons who have an exuberant work ethic tucked deep beneath soft-spoken, downhome charm. 

Dressed in casual Stampede fare, having just hosted Kiwetinohk’s staff lunch at Calgary’s Jane Bond BBQ joint, they both seemed so happy and comfortable — so “authentic” in themselves. They gleefully repeated their origin story: They met on a blind date (his roommate set them up) when Connie mistakenly answered the door in curlers (Pat claims not to have noticed). She was wrapping up high school as a 17 year-old, having skipped a grade, and Pat was all of 18. They married a year later. Babies, and happy chaos, soon followed. 

Somehow, despite the lack of funds and baby bedlam, university degrees were completed, apartments were rented, starter homes in the northeast were purchased, daycares were found and Pat’s career at BP Exploration Canada Ltd. was begun.

Not much, says a humble Pat, has really changed.

Whaaaat?

“We still take on things until, I suppose, we can’t take them anymore,” says Pat, thoughtfully.

Adds Connie: “We live our life like that. We have always lived our lives like that.”

Fully. Jam-packed. Over-stuffed, even chaotic, some might say. But not the Carlsons. No chest-thumping here, just a credo that stresses risk-taking, a passion for ideas that poke against the status quo, a thirst for experiences with no certain outcomes — built atop a foundation of rock-solid family values. But, where, exactly, does the liberty to live a life so unencumbered spring from?

“Connie,” replies Pat, matter-of-factly, of his bedrock, his IT wizard, his best friend, his soulmate. The love of his life.

When Pat’s career took a swerve

Like many entrepreneurs, Pat has never been afraid to take big swings, ones that might cost him financially and, certainly, in social capital. 

But let’s back up.

After graduating from UCalgary in 1975, Pat worked at BP for four years and then moved to Husky Oil Operations Ltd. where he became a leader in the development and application of “cold flow” technology, which reduces environmental impact by decreasing the need for added heat or chemicals. With a growing appetite for environmental and community-engagement practices, Pat next became a trailblazer in the development of thermal-recovery techniques, including steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD).

And so, a theme begins to emerge: melding a growing environmental protection ethos with a heightened sense of community engagement (which, depending on the community, may include Indigenous rights), Pat’s career swerves off-course, away from a traditional engineering role in oil and gas, toward that of a progressive, forward-thinking innovator. 

Of the five energy startups led by Pat, the most successful has been the multi-billion-dollar natural gas producer, Seven Generations Energy Ltd., named after an ancient Iroquois principle that believes that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.

So committed to this future-focused philosophy, Pat placed the company’s operational headquarters in Grande Prairie and created a company culture that made it their business to understand and respond to local issues. First, by partnering with other businesses in the community, they launched a twice-a-day bus shuttle, linking the local Horse Lake First Nation with Grande Prairie. Next, SevenGen set out to improve its local health-care facilities by raising funds through an annual charity golf tournament (more than $2 million had been raised by the time Pat retired in 2017). 

When Pat and Connie played Mr. and Mrs. Claus

Although it’s been seven years since Pat stepped down from being top dog at SevenGen, he still misses one tradition: Christmas.

Grinning, Pat explains that, one year, Connie and he celebrated Christmas in advance with their own family so “we could surprise the field guys on Christmas Day. We stayed in a motel in Grande Prairie the night before and then, early on Christmas, we went to the ‘doghouse’ and distributed the gifts to the guys on the rigs. Little things like extension cords, small tool kits for their cars ... whatever we could find at Rona and Home Depot.

"We must have given out 30 or 40 presents that first year (by 2016, they were handing out more than 2,000).  After that, Connie and I had Christmas dinner at the only place that was open ... a shawarma place.”

Connie smiles. “We loved it. So, we did it again, and again.” 

Was it Pat’s childhood, raised by parents who ran a general store and small farm before moving to Lethbridge where they toiled at minimum-wage jobs, that prompts him to give back? 

“I think so,” says Pat, recalling the church bake sales that kept his mom cooking all night and the constant door-to-door canvassing. “They taught me what community service and philanthropy was all about (the Carlsons have given UCalgary $4 million for a variety of initiatives). That, and a strong work ethic.   

“It seems to me we can all look to include and involve, well ... anyone who’s interested. Whether they are Indigenous, a new Canadian, it shouldn’t matter. We also help sponsor local people to get a technology diploma or a welding certificate or a power engineering certificate ... whatever inspires them. 

“It’s just a small step toward full inclusion," Pat continues. "It seems morally objectionable to me to bring people into a region and not set up the pre-existing residents for participation and success.” 

Was it Connie who taught Pat how to see, or, more accurately, how to listen? Perhaps. But what Pat knows today is that how you see or hear the world depends in large part what you intend to do with it. And, during that process, how easy it is to misread cues.

How NOT to engage 

There they were, Pat and his management team from Seven Generations, ready to meet the female chief of the Fort St. John band when Pat recalls saying: “'Thank you for your time, we so appreciate your attendance. We’ve got a plan for ...' And the chief said, ‘Pardon me?’”

Pat explained again that they had come prepared, bearing a plan.

“She said, ‘No, you don’t have a plan,’” recalls a sheepish Pat. “'You don’t have a plan until we' — and she emphasized the ‘we’ and gestured toward all in attendance — 'have a plan.'” Semantics and culturally sensitive language are critical to good business practices, says Pat, still rueful years later. 

What would ultimately become Pat’s signature management style was born not out of any particular philosophy or practice, but rather out of pure necessity. It was 1998 and Pat had been out of work for 18 months. They had three kids, Connie was the sole breadwinner and Pat knew from the business plan on his dining room table that he lacked the CEO skills needed to get this startup off the ground.

However, entrepreneur and lawyer Peter Williams and a few others who went on to form Passage Energy, a private energy company, believed in Pat and eventually convinced him that the business knowledge he lacked would be made up for by his technical knowledge and his deep understanding of the process of recovering oil.

“I thought it was a huge risk,” says Pat, who knew nothing about deal structures, accounting or legalities around land. “But the others were willing to take a chance with me and convinced me that every startup is lacking in a few things.”

When a pallet from Staples loaded with pens, paper, binders and books arrived at Passage’s first small downtown Calgary office (leftover space from law firm Howard Mackey), Pat was in. And the skills he learned at that gutsy juncture have only accelerated — take risks, surround yourself with trusted advisers, embrace the unknown, turn over every stone.

“I remember that moment like it was yesterday,” he says. “The elation of being a real company because we had our first stationary order.” 

As for his leadership style, Dr. Bill Rosehart, PhD, the former dean of the Schulich School of Engineering, says it’s “Pat’s influence on people and his enthusiasm for developing and mentoring others that makes him so exceptional. He’s a very inspiring individual which is likely one of the reasons why people want to join his companies as Pat always appreciates and encourages ideas.”

Climate change: The more we delay, the more we’ll pay 

He may be focused on technology, investment and inclusion, but, like the Marines, Pat is leaving no one behind.

And that includes anyone and everyone concerned about climate change. Describing his fifth company, Kiwetinohk (“north” in Cree), as a company right in the middle of the energy transition (one that integrates hydrocarbons and renewables), Pat says, “let’s do as much solar and wind as we can; then let’s look at hydrocarbons and capture the carbon ... but let’s be prudent. We can’t just throw money at things.

“Sun and wind are the future, but they’re not dependable, where gas is fully dispatchable and reliable. Right now, what Alberta needs is a combination of natural gas-fired energy, plus wind and solar power.” 

Pat says he believes governments should be focused on carbon emissions. “If you can have power or hydrogen without carbon emissions because you’ve captured the carbon and sequestered it, why does it matter to the federal government?” he says. “I think we need to ask: ‘What are the best technologies today and what are the risks associated with them?’

“People need to know what can be done and what the cost will be,” adds the man who loves John Wayne for his inscrutable moral code. “It’s up to the industry to educate people about options and then let people choose.” 

Speaking simply, logically and from the heart, you can picture Pat and Connie around a dining room table seeking consensus about supper. “What looks good? What dish will sustain us? What platter has the most food? Of all the options, what do we most value? Is there room for everything?”

Whether the table is in a boardroom or a kitchen, these are the questions that have always driven Pat’s life’s work.

And this work that has no expiry date for Pat Carlson.