Bricklins, Blueberries And Leading A Good Life Into Your Eighties
Mark Leger is the editor and part-owner of Huddle. This is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region.
My father worked full-time as a lawyer until he went into the hospital a few months before he died at the age of 86. He was experienced, diligent and loved his work. In his final years, he would occasionally receive awards, and when he was giving an acceptance speech he always reminded people that he wasn’t retiring any time soon, especially if it was something like a lifetime achievement award.
I thought of Dad as I listened to David Campbell’s interview with Malcolm Bricklin last month. Campbell was talking to him as part of the Town of Riverview’s annual Sustaina-palooza conference that engages people in conversations about innovative leaders in the sustainability sector.
Bricklin, of course, was the entrepreneur behind the Bricklin SV-1 sports car that was manufactured in New Brunswick in the 1970s. Decades later, he’s still an innovator in the auto business as the CEO of Visionary Vehicles, which is designing and manufacturing the new Bricklin 3EV.
Near the end of the keynote event that featured the conversation with Bricklin, Campbell asked the 82-year-old about his retirement plans.
“Are you crazy? Why would anyone retire? You work all your life to get smart, and then when you are the smartest you’ve ever been, from experience, you stop and throw it all away,” said Bricklin.
Huddle was a media sponsor of the event and we’re excited to rebroadcast that conversation as a special edition “Insights” podcast hosted by David Campbell and Don Mills.
PODCAST: Malcolm Bricklin On EV Sports Cars, Richard Hatfield And Elon Musk
The Bricklin chat is one of two great back-to-back interviews with seasoned entrepreneurs on the podcast. In an episode released on May 11th, Mills interviewed John Bragg, the CEO of the Bragg Group of Companies that includes Oxford Frozen Foods and the telecommunications company Eastlink.
PODCAST: John Bragg On Operating A Blueberry And Telcom Empire From Rural N.S.
Oxford Frozen Foods employs more than 600 people in the small town of Oxford, Nova Scotia, and has more than 6,000 employees across the entire group of companies.
In a year of doing my own podcast, “Home Office”, and now helping produce “Insights”, I’ve been most inspired by interviews with entrepreneurs who get fired up about their work and the contributions their companies make to the social and economic fabric of their communities.
In a wide-ranging conversation about economic development in rural Atlantic Canada, the 81-year-old Bragg says it really comes down to one essential ingredient: entrepreneurs. If we support them, community economic success will follow.
“You have to start with the entrepreneurs,” Bragg tells Mills. “When I traveled around Nova Scotia (with Eastlink), I would say, ‘who is the entrepreneur in this town? Who is the entrepreneur in this village?’ There are entrepreneurs in every town and village in Atlantic Canada. We need government policies that encourage those people.”
Bragg makes it clear he’s not talking about “giving money away.” He means supporting them by making it easy for them to cut through red tape and giving them access to capital to start and grow successful businesses. He also says small communities need schools and available housing to support an employee base.
Access to investment capital is especially critical, he says, which is what Bricklin says ended his dreams of building an enduring car company around the Bricklin SV-1. For decades, the Bricklin story has been framed as a cautionary tale about failed government investment in a private-sector company.
Bricklin says the company that employed 1,200 in Saint John and Minto had a promising future; it just needed more money—but venture capital from private sources wasn’t readily available back then. Even though Premier Richard Hatfield won the 1974 election and saw the car company as a job creator, Bricklin says the Premier soon ended the investment of government money for political reasons and the company couldn’t survive.
“In the newspapers (after the election) it said … the Premier wins the Bricklin election in a landslide,” recalls Bricklin. “I said, ‘wow, I got it made. Nothing could ever harm me here.’ Well, a couple of months later, we needed more money … (Hatfield) came in and said, ‘Malcolm, close the door, we have to have a little talk.’ He said, ‘I know you’re not going to believe this, but I’m closing you down.'”
For most New Brunswickers, Bricklin’s story ends there. But here he is, decades later, back in the province talking about his latest entrepreneurial venture, the Bricklin 3EV. In his 80s.
Bragg and Bricklin are clearly very different men. Bricklin is a colourful storyteller, charming the Sustaina-palooza audience with accounts of his early dealings with the now-celebrity entrepreneur Elon Musk. Bragg is understated and modest, giving his Eastlink employees credit for innovations that allowed the telecommunications company to stay ahead of much larger competitors.
But both men are innovators well into their “retirement” years – Bricklin with the EV version of his sports car, and Bragg with Eastlink and Oxford, which has adapted, over the decades, a traditionally seasonal business into a year-long processor of frozen blueberries and carrots.
My father had no intention to retire. Bricklin tells Campbell the same is true for him.
“Let me tell you, when I’m lying around doing nothing, I can feel life coming out of me,” Bricklin tells Campbell. “When I’m out talking to you (for example), I’m full of life and I feel terrific. So I’m going with, I want to feel terrific and keep doing everything until I die.”
We don’t all have to work full-time into our eighties to lead successful, productive lives, of course. The life lesson I take from Bricklin is to feel vigorous and engaged in whatever I choose to do, for as long as I can.
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