Little fires everywhere (paean to Dr. John McLaughlin)
It might be a little inappropriate to use this title - little fires everywhere - given the actual fires in the west but I love the image as one little fire can be easily snuffed out but if you light the fire in multiple spots it becomes harder to contain.
Former UNB President Dr. John McLaughlin was (is) a firestarter (not in the literal sense as far as I know). During his time as Prez of UNB he was instrumental in the lighting of many little fires such as the founding of the Wallace McCain Institute, Next NB, 21Inc. and more. He later lead the natural gas development retrospective audit and actually came up with a roadmap on how you engage NBers in these kinds of big, complex development projects. That was quietly shelved because of the toxicity of the issue at that time. Might be time to dust it off. It’s probably in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in Chancery Place.
We need firestarters (again not literally). Denis Caron has a blow torch up in Belledune. Craig Estabrooks is roiling the coals at Port Saint John. Chief Terry Richardson of the Pabineau First Nation is a man on a mission. Cathy Simpson at TechImpact has her lighter out and is determined to find the way to getting NB’s IT industry back to strong growth and impact. NB’s Minister of Natural Resources, John Herron is determined to restore the mining sector in New Brunswick (7% of GDP in the early 1990s, less than 1% now). Dhirendra Shukla smells like smoke - he seems always to be up to something.
These are just a few. I get to meet a lot of ‘em.
But we need more. We need entrepreneurs that want to build something big and bold. We need economic developers to dream big. We need immigrant settlement agencies to go beyond providing services to catalysts for immigrant retention. We need firestarters strategically placed across our economy. Not everyone needs to be one but we need enough to move the good ship New Brunswick in the right direct.
Dr. McLaughlin is still at it - thinking about how the province can be better and trying to find folks to light the fires.
Perhaps we also need a whole lot of well managed bonfires in addition to a few ragers. What if we had 1000 more (pretty small number) $1M/Year business - that’s a billion, and 5-15k jobs. Once we get good at motivating and supporting leaders of $1M business. We expand from there.