The Honorable Mr. Smith
The only person not interested in talking about what a great guy Manitoulin Transport founder and president Doug Smith is Doug Smith himself. The entrepreneur who Governor General Michaëlle Jean recently invited to be a Member of the Order of Canada -- this country's highest civilian honor -- might well be one of the quietest and humblest men in business. Indeed, when the Governor General office called Smith in November to ask if he'd accept the nomination, he thought they called the wrong guy. And according to Harry VanderWeerden, Smith's friend and neighbor who started the project two years ago by nominating Smith, when he was informed that he won, the trucking executive's response was "why me?" VanderWeerden says Smith originally thought of turning down the award but then on second thought figured he might insult somebody if he said no to Rideau Hall. So why Smith? For starters, the official statement says, Smith is "a business leader, philanthropist and champion of economic development in Northern Ontario." That might scratch the surface but it doesn't touch the primer. First, like many successful truckers, Smith maintains his head office in a small community; this one called Gore Bay, Ont., located on the northwest corner of Manitoulin Island -- population about 10,000 -- in the upper reaches of Georgian Bay. Manitoulin Transport was an offshoot of Smith's parents' wholesale food business. In the early '60s, the family sold the wholesale company to National Grocers but purchased an outfit called Hills Transport to cart produce from Southern Ontario to Gore Bay for local distribution. The company grew muscularly through the next decades, delivering to North­eastern Ontario and parts of Quebec. The operation expanded westward by buying Lakehead Freightways in Thunder Bay in '91. The next year, they picked up Jet Transport, in Cambridge. Ont., establishing a southern Ontario beachhead. Today, the privately held consortium that bills itself as "Canada's largest freight-management provider, with more direct Canadian service points than any other LTL carrier in North America" ranks 17th on the Today's Trucking list of Top 100 For Hire Carriers with more than 50 terminals, 580 tractors, and 1,300 trailers. Manitoulin is also one of the largest employers in the region. And while his sons Gordon and Jeffery are assuming more and more of the day-to-day operations, Smith is still busy with the company and very active in the community. He swims a half an hour every day and plays jazz clarinet in a band. Brent St Denis, the Liberal MP for Algoma-Manitoulin, says Smith's company is a huge boon to the area. "It's a well-known fact that Doug and his wife Phyllis and Doug in particular has been an exceptional leader when it comes to supporting not only community organizations but the community at large." St. Denis adds that although he's not a personal friend of Smith's, he is aware of the trucker's efforts on behalf of the industry, particularly when it comes to border issues. For several years, Smith was on the executive of Ontario Trucking Association (OTA). For part of that time, the chair was Paul Hammond, of Muskoka Transport Ltd. Like Smith, Hammond launched an internationally successful OTR fleet out of a small northcentral Ontario community; namely, Bracebridge. "Of course we're competitors," Hammond says. "But as competitors go, Doug's one of the good guys. He doesn't get into things like fooling around or rate cutting even when things got rough." "Right now, it's pretty tough out there and there's lots of guys ready to slash their rates, but he's not that kind of competitor. He's an old-school kind of guy; his word's his word's and that's that." The current OTA President David Bradley shares Hammond's admiration for Smith. "His [Smith's] is truly a great success story," Bradley says. "He's not only a successful trucker, he's community minded and the fact that he's so self-effacing makes the award that much nicer." Bradley, whose organization has been lobbying for more than a year to have speed limiters mandatory on highway trucks, cites Smith's company as evidence that limiters are no impediment to successful trucking. Manitoulin's fleet has been governed at 90 km/h for years. "He knows how important capped speed limits can be, and he's very successful," Bradley points out. And, Bradley adds, "Doug is an awfully nice man, and he's also, when you get to know him, very funny." Both Hammond and Bradley had a memorable taste of Manitoulin hospitality when Hammond was OTA chair and the pair flew to Gore Bay on Smith's twin-engine plane. After the day's business was done, they took off for Toronto again, but just as they soared over Georgian Bay, one of the engines blew a piston and the plane -- listing slightly and sopping with oil -- made an emergency return to Gore Bay. Bradley says he wasn't scared. Hammond admits he sure was. "To this day," Bradley says, "We laugh about it and Doug says if he ever sends us a plane again he promises it'll have a working engine." If there's one thing that does work around Gore Bay, it's the trucks. "The Smiths know how to move freight," observes long-time Northern Ontario fleet owner and technical wiz Art Fraser, who has known the family, he says, "ever since I was a little kid and I'm not telling you how old I am." "They know how to rate stuff and they know how to move freight," he says. "They know how to load trailers and how to treat drivers. They're consistent and the drivers have runs that make sense." Another Manitoulin innovation that speaks to Smith's trucking ingenuity is Smith's invention, The supertruck. He came up with it in 1980. The rig consists of a cabover tractor with a 13-foot dromedary box. This box allowed temperature-controlled freight to be moved while pulling a stake-and-rack trailer, so heavier product such as lumber or steel could be pulled at the same time as general freight, which could go in the supertruck box. Meanwhile, back on Manitoulin, Smith is more famous for his contributions to the community. Despite his low personal profile, The Manitoulin Transport Group and the Smiths figure prominently wherever there's a need. Says MP St. Denis: "Whether it's high-school teams or the legion or organizations in support of cancer research, he is a leading light in the community. When there's a situation of need he and his company have stepped up to be very, very helpful." Sixty others were invited to join the Order of Canada at the same time as Smith, among them Wayne's father Walter Gretzky, cited for his community and volunteer work, and David Letterman's band leader and Thunder Bay native Paul Shaffer. Smith is not the first trucker to join the Order of Canada, either. In 1978, the former executive vice president of the OTA Joe Goodman was recognized for 45 years of dedication to the industry and in 1998, Trimac founder Bud McCaig got the nod because of his business development and extensive participation in a wide variety of activities including the Canadian Olympic Foundation, the McCaig Centre for Orthopedic and Arthritis Research at the University of Calgary, and the Calgary Regional Health Authority. Coincidentally, the very same week that Smith received the call from the Governor General's office advising him of the award, he was told he was the recipient of the 2007 Trailmobile Service to Industry Award, which he was presented at this year's annual OTA convention. Next on his dance card, Smith says, to meet Governor General Jean "sometime in either 2008 or 2009" as a special Order of Canada induction ceremony.