MacDon VP remembered for generous, fun-loving spirit

Many of Gene Fraser’s recollections of his cousin and MacDon boss Gary MacDonald involve good-natured mischief.

There was the time where they were holed up at 3 a.m. in a conference hospitality suite with friends. One of the other men propped his bare feet up on a chair and dropped off to sleep.

“We should decorate his toes,” Fraser recalled MacDonald saying.

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The men jammed Doritos and potato chips between their friend’s exposed digits.

“Fun was just his middle name some days,” Fraser said.

At an industry event in Clear Lake, they had a group staying in some chalet cabins. Gary — an avid bagpiper — decided it would be fun to wake everyone up at 6 a.m. with a rousing Scottish tune.

“He knew I had the rooming list, so he said, ‘Gene, come with me,’” Fraser said.

At the crack of dawn, they snuck around the cabins. Fraser knocked on a door, and MacDonald started up the bagpipes. A puzzled guest came to the door. Fraser didn’t recognize her.

When MacDonald finished the tune, the woman thanked them. As they retreated, MacDonald shot him him a look, Fraser recalled at the memorial service, to a round of chuckles.

“I said, ‘I really think she liked them, Gary.’”

Gary MacDonald was executive vice-president of the family business — agriculture equipment manufacturer MacDon Industries, which is based in Winnipeg.

He died October 14 after an extended battle with brain disease. A memorial service was held in Winnipeg on November 6. Fraser delivered his eulogy.

The family business

MacDonald was born in 1951 in Truro, Nova Scotia, to Joe and Anne MacDonald. He grew up in Brantford, Ontario.

In 1970, Joe MacDonald came to Winnipeg to help a friend with his struggling farm equipment company, Killbery Industries Ltd., says an article on MacDon’s website. Joe would go on to buy the company.

At age 10, MacDonald began playing the bagpipes, said Fraser — as an East Coast kid, it was either that or the fiddle. His parents were proud.

He went on to study business at the University of Western Ontario. There, he also played rugby. After graduation, he moved his young family to Winnipeg to join the family business.

In Winnipeg he quickly found a bagpipe band and a rugby team. These would remain important parts of his life, both as a musician, player, and as a coach.

Son Chris MacDonald told those at the memorial what his dad’s typical Saturday looked like.

He’d start by taking Chris to bagpipe lessons. Then he’d take daughter Joanna to Highland dance, followed by a MacDon hockey game, and then a stop at a friend’s house to help her pick up groceries. He might visit another friend before going to a steak house to have dinner with visiting MacDon dealers. He might cap off the day by making a surprise bagpipe performance at a wedding social.

“Dad, you wore life out and had a heck of a lot of fun doing so,” Chris said.

Boss and mentor

As executive vice-president, Gary was effectively in charge of sales, engineering and marketing, said Fraser in an email to the Co-operator. The cousins worked together since 1983.

Fraser highlighted product accomplishments Gary was part of — MacDon’s self-propelled windrowers, development of Draper Headers onto combines in the late ’80s, and further development of Flexdrapers in the early 2000s.

Fraser also listed the many OEM (original equipment manufacturer) relationships Gary built as a key accomplishment.

Gary and the MacDonald family faced their biggest challenge, Fraser told the Co-operator, in the mid-1980s.

“Our largest OEM customer at the time was going through financial difficulty and requested we ship product and would pay us when they got paid,” Fraser said.

An article on MacDon’s website says this deal was worth $13 million. MacDon had the equipment ready to go so the customer may have thought MacDon had no choice but to agree to the bargain. Joe MacDonald said no.

“(MacDon was) left with no choice but to move the inventory via an independent dealer network,” Fraser said. “(This) effectively launched us into the dealer direct market. We left some of our OEM contract roots behind.”

As his boss, Fraser remembers Gary as a mentor. In his eulogy, he recalled Gary sending him a card as he took the position of director of marketing. Gary congratulated him and asked him to speak up if something didn’t look, smell or feel right.

“Let’s make priority No. 1 to have lots of fun,” Gary added.

In a tribute on MacDon’s website, former employee Jeff Nowak said on his last day of work, Gary came to him and wished him the best. Gary told him to gain as much experience as possible, and to return to MacDon one day.

“That was the kind of person Gary was, only wanted the best for everyone,” Nowak wrote.

“He would listen to (a) part-time high school kid cleaning equipment in the shop with the same interest he had when talking to the owner of multiple dealerships,” wrote Dan Petersen on MacDon’s tribute page.

“He was very much interested in the well-being of his employees in and out of work,” wrote Brian Morello. “I used to love our visits where we would chat about work but mostly about our personal lives and the well-being of others.”

“Gary was truly a person for others,” Fraser said.