Ralph Thomas Scurfield - Early Years

Early Years

Ralph Thomas Scurfield was born in Broadview, Saskatchewan, on January 7, 1928. His family soon moved to the small farming community of Ninga, Manitoba where his father was the station master on the Canadian Pacific Railway line. Ralph was active in sports and enjoyed playing hockey and soccer as a child. Few who knew him from his rural childhood days could have imagined that the bright boy with reddish hair, who walked to the one-room school house with his pet crow on his shoulder, would grow up to become one of the most successful and influential Canadian businessmen of his generation.

Scurfield attended the University of Manitoba, working his way through school by taking summer carpentry jobs in the northern town of Churchill, Manitoba. After receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1948, Ralph became an elementary school teacher. He taught in Manitoba for only two years, before leaving a promising teaching career to pursue his chosen trade of carpentry. In 1951, lured by the booming Alberta economy, he moved to Edmonton, where he quickly found employment with McConnell Homes as a crew foreman. Scurfield was soon settled in Alberta, and in July 1954 he married Sonia Onishenko, the youngest child of her Ukrainian–Russian immigrant parents.

Scurfield’s employer, Ches McConnell, impressed with Ralph’s work ethic and university degree, asked Ralph to move 160 miles south to Calgary to manage the small, financially struggling, house building company called Nu-West Homes. Ralph agreed, but only on the condition that he be allowed to buy in as a 1/3 partner.

After mortgaging his house to finance his partnership, in 1957, at the age of 29, he became president of Nu-West Homes, a Calgary-based company building approximately 40 homes a year. When he moved to Calgary in May 1957, he found that Nu-West was in worse financial shape than he had been led to believe. With only a secretary and a bobcat driver as employees, Ralph went to work salvaging the reputation of the near bankrupt Nu-West Homes by fixing previously built houses free of charge. By putting in long hours he was able to establish Nu-West Homes as a company of strong customer service. Nu-West quickly became known for quality housing and after-sales service. Under Scurfield’s direction, Nu-West Homes flourished, and Scurfield’s personal stature grew.

In 1969 Nu-West went public, raising 2.9 million in its initial share offering. The money raised was used to purchase land in and around the City of Edmonton enabling Nu-West to enter the Edmonton house building market. The Alberta cities of Edmonton and Calgary were both growing very fast due to the continuing oil boom. Now positioned as the province’s largest house builder, Nu-West provided the homes demanded by the quickly growing population. Nu-West continued to expand and was soon building homes and buildings across Canada and in parts of the United States.

As a result of Nu-West's success, Scurfield became very wealthy and respected. His advice was sought out by city planners, business, and political leaders. He sat as a director with numerous corporations including Carma Ltd., The Mortgage Insurance Company of Canada, MICC Investments Ltd., and Sunshine Village Corporation. He was a part owner Calgary Flames Hockey Club, a member of the Faculty of Management Advisory Board of the University of Calgary, a member of the Board of Governors of the Banff Centre for Continuing Education, and he served a term as President of the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada. He travelled extensively, for both business and pleasure, and was an avid sportsman who enjoyed ice hockey, football, skiing, fishing and golf. In 1969, three years before President Richard Nixon's historic visit, Scurfield (then President of the National House Builder’s Association), was invited to visit the People's Republic of China as part of an official business delegation. In 1981, as a personal guest of former U.S. President Gerald Ford, Ralph and his wife were in attendance to witness the first launching of the NASA Space Shuttle.

Scurfield’s influence within the Calgary business community cannot be overstated. Scurfield was one of the founding members of Carma Ltd., a cooperative of independent builders who banded together to form a land development company to provide serviced lots to Calgary homebuilders. In 1963 he became President of the Calgary House Builder's Association, and in 1969 became the President of the National House Builder's Association of Canada.

Using his influence, Scurfield established national house building standards, and introduced the "New Home Builder's Warranty Program" which continues to this day. He convinced his contemporary house building competitors that long term quality of life was more important than short-term profit.

Always defying the stereotype, Scurfield demonstrated that a land developer could also be an environmentalist. The lands which are now Nose Hill Park were once privately owned and zoned for residential development. The largest landowners were Nu-West and Carma. Recognizing that the natural beauty of the undisturbed Nose Hill added a distinctive and desirable quality of life to Calgary, in the mid-1970s, Ralph orchestrated a land swap between Nu-West, Carma Developers and the City of Calgary, such that the City gained ownership of the future Park Lands. Over the next decade, the City acquired the remaining parcels of private holdings, and the resulting protected lands are now Nose Hill Park, the largest city-owned natural park in North America, and part of Ralph’s lasting legacy to the City of Calgary and its citizens.

By the end of the 1970s, Nu-West had become a diversified company, and so did Scurfield’s personal holdings. In 1980 the Scurfield Family bought Sunshine Village, a ski resort located in the Banff National Park. In 1981, Ralph Scurfield made a $4 million private donation to the University of Calgary, with a matching donation by Nu-West Group Ltd., to begin construction of a new faculty of management building. The building, named Scurfield Hall, opened on January 1, 1986. Ralph T. Scurfield was also one of six Calgary businessmen who purchased the NHL's Atlanta Flames, which were then moved to Calgary for the 1980–81 season. The other original investors are Harley Hotchkiss, Daryl Seaman, Byron Seaman, Norman Green, and Normie Kwong. When the Calgary Flames won the NHL Championship in 1989, Ralph's widow, Sonia Scurfield, became only the second woman (the first Canadian woman) to have her name engraved on the Stanley Cup.

But things began to get tough in the early 1980s when the federal government brought in the National Energy Program, which didn't allow Albertans to sell oil to other Canadians at world prices. People left Alberta in droves and almost no one bought homes, with existing owners walking away from mortgages. Real estate prices plummeted and the industry collapsed. Nu-West, which was heavily leveraged with debt, lost its place of dominance in the house building industry.

On February 18, 1985, Scurfield and another person were killed in an avalanche while Heli-skiing in the Monashee Mountains near Blue River, British Columbia. The resulting court decision (Scurfield v. Cariboo Helicopter Skiing Ltd. (1993), 74 B.C.L.R. (2d) 224) on the doctrine of contributory negligence in Canadian law resulted in a finding that Scurfield Snr was 75% responsible for the incident having ignored express instruction of the guide. On appeal, the decision found that Scurfield Snr was 100% responsible for the fatal incident and relieved the guide of any and all responsibility.