kirstie McLellan Day kirstie McLellan Day - The MOMpreneur

Entrepreneurial roots
McLellan Day and her sister are both quick to credit the
ambience of an entrepreneurial household growing up, one
that included the whole fam-damily. “Dad (Bud McLellan)
had his own electrical contracting business and he was
always inventing things to solve a problem,” says McLellan
Day. “The door didn’t shut properly – he made something
to fix it. Something was always being created.” In addition,
their Mom (Joan McLellan) took care of the home but was
also fully her husband’s partner in strategy and support. At
dinner, the kids would sit captivated by talk of employees,
debt, payroll; it was a tutorial for business.
But if taking the business to heart is the key to success,
McLellan Day says she knows where to draw the line. “We
worked like crazy. I joke that we didn’t want to work 9-5, so
now we’re working 7-3...AM. I had kidney cancer in 1992
and after that I really had to re-evaluate. My priority always
was my kids and family. Once I had my health back I realized
– there’s just no point in worrying about work.”
“Besides,” adds Julie, “that’s what she has me for.” They
both laugh.
A dynamic marriage…and thriving
partnership with Larry Day
The primary partnership, however, that is integral to
McLellan Day and for which she credits her success and
her happiness, is her personal and professional relationship
with husband Larry. Right from the start they realized they
had chemistry and synergy – instincts they followed to a “T”
and which have directly contributed to the company’s
bottom line.
“Larry was and is a pack-rat who comes from a long line of
hoarders. In fact, when his grandfather died, there was so
much stuff in his house, they found three baby-grand pianos
they didn’t even know he had. Larry has a bit of that gene so
when he was doing interviews he kept all the tape that other
people would throw away. He collected it from everywhere.
On the other hand, I’m an organizer, so I said: let’s put this
together in a way that makes sense. We realized we had this
entertainment footage that was an asset no one was valuing
and we started cataloguing it in a way that would make it
available some day for clients to use as archives.”
Eventually they started actively seeking out footage that was
left on cutting room floors. “I knew of one entertainment
reporter who lost her job and she was throwing away years of
tape. I said to her, why don’t you take that with you or give it
to the broadcaster? But no, she didn’t want it. So I said – Can
I have it? I couldn’t believe it.
“We saved everything.
We have Larry interviewing Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Kristy McNichol
and Tatum O’Neal from Little Darlings.
We have Farah and Ryan from when they
came to town to promote Willie DeWitt
as a boxer – we’ve got a lot of tape.”
And then there was her long-time love of writing – something
she now had abundant opportunity to pursue. “I would say
I’ve touched pretty much every script that’s come out of
Pyramid,” McLellan Day says proudly.
Whatever their work dynamic brings to the relationship,
however, the shop-talk all stops at the bedroom door.
Computers are allowed in – for reading only. No work
emails, no writing. “We are partners on absolutely every
aspect of the company but you can’t do that 24/7. Personal
time is personal time,” she warns.
Big projects need big space:
Developing Pyramid’s HQ
A large part of Pyramid’s success is a result of foreseeing the
value of real estate. At a time when most of the industry was
freelance, the McLellan Day team wanted infrastructure.
They invested in a 36,000 square foot production facility in
southeast Calgary that is the envy of producers worldwide.
This building houses state-of-the-art production suites,
sound stages, sets, graphics and computer animation and
post-production sound facilities – all with expert in-house
30 MOMpreneur ® � July/August 2010