Arthur J.E. Child Foundation
TriWest Capital Partners shares a common heritage with the Arthur J.E. Child Foundation.
The Foundation was endowed in 1996 with the estate of Arthur Child, who was the business partner and co-owner of the Burns Foods Group of Companies with Ron Jackson and Lorne Jacobson, co-founders of TriWest.
Lorne, Ron, and David Elton have served as Trustees of the Arthur J.E. Child Foundation since inception and have used their personal familiarity with Mr. Child to make hundreds of charitable grants that faithfully support his interests and his legacy.
Over the past 27 years, the Arthur J.E. Child Foundation has donated nearly $100 million to charitable causes around the world, and most recently donated another $50 million to the new Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Calgary.
The Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Center is exactly the model of excellence, diligence, and focused resources that Mr. Child would have admired, and the integration of research, education, technology, and compassionate care that will tangibly and remarkably benefit the people facing the threat of cancer in our community is exactly the force for good that Mr. Child would have gladly sponsored.
About Arthur J.E. Child
Arthur J.E. Child was born in Guildford, England in 1910 and moved with his family to Gananoque, Ontario at a young age. He was an industrious young man and graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in languages while also attending Canadian Military Officer Training.
He then began what would become an illustrious career in the food business as an office clerk at Canada Packers (now called Maple Leaf Foods) and quickly rose to Chief Auditor and then VP and Secretary/Treasurer, while concurrently obtaining his Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Toronto.
In 1960 he moved to Saskatoon to become President and CEO of Intercontinental Packers where he where he tripled the size of that company before he was recruited to become the President and CEO of Burns Foods in Calgary. He turned around the struggling fortunes of that historic franchise and for nearly 3 decades he led the largest food conglomerate in Western Canada, eventually becoming its majority shareholder.
Mr. Child adopted Calgary as his permanent home and became a fervent supporter of Western Canada until his passing in 1996. In addition to his leadership in the food industry, Mr. Child pursued his personal interests in aviation, military history, linguistics, literature, and health sciences. He co-founded the Canada West Foundation, an independent public policy think tank that researches economics, interprovincial trade, agriculture policy and social policy with the goal of helping Western Canadian businesses and governments thrive.
Mr. Child was known for his generosity, both financially and in his willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt. His success in business and philanthropy was recognized by his investiture as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1985, as an Honorary Colonel in the Canadian Military and with honorary doctorates from Queen’s University, University of Calgary, and University of Toronto.
He remained a vigorous business leader and philanthropist well into his 80’s.