James Temerty
Today I would like
to tell you about James Temerty … a distinguished Canadian entrepreneur, civic leader,
and philanthropist, and founder of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.
James Temerty is well-known and respected for his
vision, initiative and servant leadership, and has received many honours for
his achievements.
He was born in the Donbas region of Ukraine during WWII. His parents were deported to Germany as forced
labourers. After the war, his family lived in Belgium for three years, before
coming to Canada and settling in Montreal.
Mr. Temerty’s lifelong entrepreneurial attributes
appeared early in life. His first venture was founding a University Student
Business Association … which brought
Dick Clark’s American Bandstand to a thrilled audience in Montreal, and
eventually employed 42 students.
After graduating, he held various marketing and management positions
with IBM in Canada and the United States. After 15 years, Mr. Temerty returned
to his entrepreneurial roots, building a single franchise into the world’s
largest privately held chain of ComputerLand stores.
Today Mr. Temerty is
well known as the founder and chair of Northland Power, Canada’s first
independent power producer and a Canadian icon
for clean and green energy sources.
Founded in 1987, Northland Power operates biomass, natural gas and wind power projects
in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Wind, solar and waterpower ventures are
currently under development.
As well, his company owns 51 percent of Darnytsia
power company, one of the most efficient combined heat and power plants in
Ukraine.
A man of boundless energy and compassion, Mr. Temerty devotes much of his time and fortune to philanthropic
causes in Canada and Ukraine.
He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Northland
Power Income Fund, Governor of the Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health
Sciences Centre, and a member of the board of the
Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation. From 2002 to 2009 he was the Chairman
of the Royal Ontario Museum Board of Governors.
He is Founding Chairman of the National Advisory Council for the Ukrainian Canadian
Congress, and a benefactor of Holodomor Research and Education at
the University of Alberta. He recently
donated one million dollars to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights towards the
development of an exhibit on the Holodomor … the Famine-Genocide of 1932-33 in Ukraine.
Internationally, Mr. Temerty serves as a Director of the Ukraine Enterprise
Corporation, and is a member of Ukrainian President Kuchma's Foreign Investment
Advisory Council.
He is a benefactor of Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University, one of Ukraine’s leading
educational institutions and the only Catholic university in the former Soviet
Union. There he has established three departments that study Jewish-Ukrainian
interfaith relations. He supports similar initiatives
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He is a Trustee of
a Children's Hospital in Kyiv and was instrumental in launching the Kyiv Mohyla
Business School of which he serves as Chairman of its Advisory Council.
Mr. Temerty’s achievements have earned him some distinguished honours in recent
years.
In 2007 he was awarded the Shevchenko Medal by the
Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
In 2008, he was appointed a Member of the Order of
Canada, the highest honour bestowed to Canadian citizens.
In 2010 he was named Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year
and Entrepreneur of the Year in the energy and natural resources sector.
In 2012 he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond
Jubilee Medal.
And in June, 2013,
James Temerty was the first recipient of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky
Medal, an award established by the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine for
contributions to the cause of Ukrainian-Jewish understanding and cooperation.
Most notably for us, Mr. Temerty is founder and
chairman of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Initiative.
This organization was
founded to deepen cross-cultural and interfaith relations between Ukrainians
and Jews. It strives to resolve thorny and
long-embedded issues, and bring the
two peoples together in understanding and empathy of each other’s historical
experience and narratives. To advance these goals, the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter has
convened a series of meetings and conferences, engaging close to 200 scholars and experts in Ukraine, Israel, and the
Ukrainian and Jewish diasporas.
It also supports the Jewish Museum of Lviv, and our efforts to
restore and preserve what remains of Ukraine’s Jewish heritage in the wake of Nazi and Communist devastation. And thanks to Mr. Temerty and the Ukrainian Jewish
Encounter, we are able to bring you these weekly
insights on Ukraine’s Jewish community.
You can find out more about our ongoing efforts at our website www.jewishheritage.org.ua … And of course, please join us again next week for another episode of
Ukrainian Jewish Heritage here on Nash Holos.