One of Edmonton's Biggest Advertisers Dies

Obituaries for folks in the entertainment world that have come to the end of the road.

One of Edmonton's Biggest Advertisers Dies

Postby jon » Wed Jan 04, 2012 8:52 am

Don Wheaton Sr. remembered for his philanthropy, business acumen
By Brent Wittmeier, edmontonjournal.com
January 3, 2012

EDMONTON - Don Wheaton Sr. was sipping scotch in his downtown Edmonton condo in early 1995 when he was asked him what he still hoped to accomplish.

“Gosh, I’m so busy living, I don’t know,” shrugged the then-71-year-old.

It was a characteristically modest moment in an ambitious life.

Mr. Wheaton had recently acquired his 10th General Motors dealership. His holdings included the Millennium Insurance Corporation, a substantial real estate portfolio, and half ownership of the Morningstar Air Express charter plane company, which held the lucrative FedEx contract for Western Canada.

Still, Mr. Wheaton rebuffed questions about personal worth with a curt, “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” Queries about additional acquisitions were met with a sly wink. “Call me in 10 days,” he said.

Over the next decade and a half, Mr. Wheaton would add eight more dealerships and Canada’s first privately chartered bank. He died on Dec. 29 in Naples, Fla., half a century after coming to Edmonton to run the Whyte Avenue General Motors dealership that bears his name. He was 88.

Born on Oct. 7, 1923 in Saskatoon, Sask., Mr. Wheaton’s life is a veritable textbook on hustle, building a western Canadian auto empire from a humble poolside business.

Mr. Wheaton enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan following the Second World War, when he had served as an engineer and pilot of Lancaster bombers. He soon began selling hotdogs for a dime — six cents was profit — outside Saskatoon pools.

In 1948, he married Marion Sparling and sold his hotdog business. He moved to Porcupine Plain in eastern Saskatchewan, where he worked for a 50-per-cent stake in the general store. He soon owned the business outright.

Mr. Wheaton became one of four partners in Porcupine Plain’s General Motors dealership in 1955, quickly assuming control and chalking up half a million dollars in sales his first year.

General Motors took notice, granting Mr. Wheaton control of the Edmonton’s Hood Chev-Olds dealership on Whyte Avenue in 1961. Within two years, Mr. Wheaton was buying up shares in the dealership. He owned it by 1966.

In 1970, Mr. Wheaton and a partner bought a Cessna dealership, which they turned into a charter company, profiting off a booming oil economy and ferrying real estate moguls and lumber industrialists to southern U.S. destinations.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, Mr. Wheaton parlayed profits into a growing stable of dealerships, with day-to-day operations increasingly overseen by his eight children. He threw himself into philanthropy, chairing a successful United Way campaign in 1985.

The straight-shooting businessman didn’t shy away from making his feeling public when he thought someone was trying to mess with his empire, as seen from comments just before Edmonton’s 1995 civic election.

“I don’t think I’m going to vote for any of them for mayor,” Mr. Wheaton said. “Every last one of the sons-of-bitches wants to kill my business at the municipal airport.”

That straightforwardness was typical, said Murray Koch, another giant of Edmonton’s car sales business.

“He exuded honesty and integrity,” Koch said Tuesday. “He was the kind of guy you’d trust on a handshake. There was never a question. Don Wheaton’s word was his bond and I would have trusted him with anything.”

Koch sold cars for Hugh McColl when Mr. Wheaton arrived. They struck up a friendship when Koch and his brother acquired a Ford dealership in 1965. Nearly four decades later, Mr. Wheaton called on Koch to introduce him when he was feted by the Edmonton Motor Dealers Association.

“I never attained his stature in life, but that never bothered me,” said Koch, who considers Mr. Wheaton a mentor. “I wish I could have been more like him.”

Koch remembered Mr. Wheaton’s gracious personal side he saw during countless hours relaxing on his boat, plane, or leisurely Sunday motorcycle rides, when they’d stop at a country diner for a coffee or a sandwich.

“You would never know that this man was of the means that he had,” Koch said. “He was very successful, but never spoke about that.”

That approachability also struck Franco Savoia when he arrived in town in 2000 as the new CEO of the Edmonton YMCA.

Having met through the United Way campaign, Savoia asked Mr. Wheaton to show him the ropes of Edmonton’s business and charitable sectors. They met for lunch. Savoia nervously eyed his watch, not wanting to waste the time of one of the city’s most successful businessmen.

Mr. Wheaton insisted they keep talking.

“As we’re going back to his office, he said, ‘do you have time for a coffee?’” Savoia said, laughing at the memory. “He just had time for people.”

In 2003, Mr. Wheaton donated $2 million to the YMCA for a $26-million downtown facility, called the Don Wheaton Family YMCA after Marion insisted they drop her name. The only strings attached to the money, Savoia said, was to make it the best facility.

“There was no desire to flaunt or to say ‘look at us.’” Savoia said. “That’s the way Don worked. You build with integrity and trust around a vision of how to make a community a better place. He lived his life that way.”

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Whe ... story.html
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