OTTAWA – Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale last week dipped into his Regina network of friends and contacts to pick a new chair for the Farm Credit Corp.
Donald Black, president of Greystone Capital Management Inc. in Regina and a longtime friend of the minister, was introduced Jan. 13 as the new FCC chair.
It will be a part-time job, unlike the full-time role played for seven years by former chair Jim Hewitt before he retired in December.
“His involvement as chairman will be offering advice, leading the board and reviewing the overall policy of the corporation,” FCC president Gerry Penney said.
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Penney, brought into the FCC from the treasury board in 1987, assumes increased control over the day-to-day operations of the farm-lending crown corporation.
He said he did not know how much pay Black will receive in his part-time role as chair and a member of the FCC board of directors. He said he expects the role will require a few days of work each month and Black will retain his present job as president of a pension fund investment management firm.
Other appointments
Goodale also announced appointment of two FCC directors – Joan Meyer of Rush Lake, Sask. and Howard Fuller of Kings County, N.S. – with a promise of more appointments this winter.
Meyer is involved in a southern Saskatchewan farming operation and is chair of the Swift Current and district multicultural council.
Goodale and Black have been friends for more than a decade. Black introduced Goodale to the woman who later became his wife.
Black was president of Pioneer Life at the time and after Goodale left provincial politics in 1988, Black hired him as head of regulatory affairs for the insurance company.
In his announcement of the appointment, Goodale said the chair’s position had been made part-time “in line with government restraint and consistent with contemporary corporate governance principles.”
Penney said it is an arrangement in line with common private sector arrangements.
