WHO'S ON THE V LIST? - Virani Real Estate Advisors

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A GENTLEMAN: HERB DOMAN Mogul 44 | <strong>THE</strong> V <strong>LIST</strong> | FALL 07 | www.thevlist.com By Marcie Good resourceful A lthough Herb Doman built an enormous lumber empire that established him as an icon in the industry, he never forgot his roots. Herb, who passed away on July 25 at age 75, started his business out of a dark green 1952 Dodge truck and built it into Doman Industries Limited, a fully integrated forest products company which operated sawmills, pulp mills, valueadded plants and a log merchandiser, and owned extensive timber rights and logging operations. At its peak, it had sales in excess of $1 billion and employed over 4,000 people. In business historian Peter C. Newman’s words, he was “the fi rst East Indian to become a member of the Canadian Establishment,” and his many honours included being shortlisted to serve as Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. But the advice he frequently gave his son Rick was “never forget where you came from.”
One symbol of how Herb lived those words is now parked at the Cherry Point farm he and his wife Helen bought 25 years ago. One of Herb’s fi rst employees discovered his original truck a few years ago at the trucking fi rm he had bought from Herb, and contacted Rick. They cleaned it up and refurbished it and presented it to Herb in mint condition. When he saw it his eyes lit up. “I think it was the best surprise my dad’s ever had,” says Rick. “It brought back stories that none of us had heard before.” Those stories began when Herb was 12 years old. After his father died, he quit school and went to work to support his family. He started with newspaper routes and then sold eggs and then fi rewood door-to-door. At 15, he bought the truck and started buying lumber from local mills. Rick can imagine his father developing the negotiating skills and talent for creating effi ciencies that made him such a successful entrepreneur. “He would go to sites where people had a hole in the ground, waiting to put in a house, and he would say, ‘I can get you lumber at this price.’ And he would give good deals.” In 1953, Herb formed Doman Lumber Company, and two years later incorporated Doman Lumber Limited, a successful trucking business and building supply store. In 1964, he took his company public. He built four sawmills on Vancouver Island, and acquired fi ve other sawmills and two pulp mills. Against the opinions of others, he kept the company’s head offi ce in his hometown, Duncan. As he built up the business, Herb thought of his own father, Attar Doman Singh, who had worked in the industry logging the timber of the Cowichan Valley and at one point leasing a mill to cut timber for the CPR. He told the Vancouver Sun in 2002 that he felt his father never had the opportunity to fulfi ll his own dream. “I built the company up for my father, for his family and for the family name,” Herb told reporter Gordon Hamilton. Rick, who took over as CEO of Doman Industries in 2001 after Herb had a series of strokes, also had an early start in the lumber business. At age 10, his father started taking him on Sunday trips, during which they would visit fi ve or six of his sawmills between their Duncan and Nanaimo. At each sawmill, his father would talk to whoever was working there-a manager, maintenance staff, or saw fi ler. “My dad would talk to everybody,” Rick recalls. It was a quality that several union leaders also praised. In an industry often plagued with labour disputes, Herb was remembered as a tough businessman who nevertheless cared about his employees and treated them fairly. “He came from a working class family, with basically no money,” says Rick. “That’s why he always had a great deal of respect for his employees. He always felt that his greatest asset was the people that worked for him.” The sawmill at Duke Point was built in the late 1970s, and Rick watched its progress on those weekly trips. Herb would look at the site and then meet the builder at a coffee shop to make suggestions, like moving equipment to a different area to make it more effi cient. Everything they discussed, Rick A GENTLEMAN: HERB DOMAN noticed, his father wrote on the back of a napkin. It showed him Herb’s ability to communicate with absolute simplicity. He was, Rick says, “an industrial genius.” When Rick was 12, his father dropped him off at the lumber yard and told the manager to put him to work. Herb wanted his son to learn the business the same way he did-from the ground up. Rick loved the work, and he began with sweeping, and then moved into stocking lumber. At 21 he was brought into the sales offi ce and put in charge of North American lumber sales and then global sales at a time when the company sold products in 32 countries. In 2004 the business was taken over by bondholders, but even in diffi cult times, Herb showed integrity. He made the excruciating decision to give up the reins. “He did the right thing,” says Rick, “and it did nothing for him personally but it saved the jobs.” At his funeral on August 1, Herb was remembered for his devotion to his family (wife Helen and their four children-Darcia, Sherry, Verinda and Rick), and to his community.
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