Greg McDougall: Mogul and Mountain Man

They might inhabit the same body, but there’s apparently two Greg McDougalls out there, and you’ll get a pretty much even split between both of them if you try Googling the name.

On the one hand, there are the formal items of business news detailing Harbour Air founder Greg McDougall’s extension into overseas markets or his views on airport security. On the other hand, there’s the Greg McDougall who is becoming increasingly well-known as an extreme sports lover; a man consistently described as an “adrenaline junkie” who, at the age of 50, completed a 921-kilometre relay bike race across South Africa known as the Cape Epic, and then followed it up with the most notoriously difficult bike race on earth, Costa Rica’s La Ruta de Los Conquistadores—both in the same year.

But they are, of course, one and the same man. And while it makes sense on some level that the sole proprietor of the world’s largest seaplane carrier would possess a somewhat adventurous spirit—especially considering that he was still actually flying planes for the company up until nine years ago—the apparent extent of McDougall’s will-to-adventure is still liable to send jaws dropping to the floor. Asked about any other high-test acts of physical endurance he’d consider taking on, McDougall replies, “Well, I met a guy the other day that had climbed all seven of the highest peaks in the world, and he didn’t seem like too much of a superman, so maybe...”

The CEO then follows that up with a laundry list of ambitions still left to fulfill.

Adventure and risk-taking are in Greg McDougall’s nature
(Dina Goldstein)“Fly jets,” he says, “become a really good surfer and kite boarder; Paris-Dakar and Baja 1000 races on a dirt bike; learn more difficult helicopter flying techniques such as high-altitude landings and sling loads; do an Iron Man competition, etc. etc. I could go on pretty much indefinitely.”

When he founded Harbour Air twenty-five years ago, McDougall was already an avid skier and passionate outdoorsman, the result of a hard-wired preference for excitement. “It’s probably a miracle I survived it,” quips McDougall about his childhood, while an unconventional home life further fostered a taste for both the wilderness and the best way of getting there. “My exposure to seaplanes took place during the summer at our lake cabin,” he recalls. McDougall’s father held a teaching position at a California boarding school, but the family would return to Canada for the summers, relocating to Nelson Island, B.C. McDougall still spends a few months each year there. “It seemed logical to me that [seaplanes] were also the key to spending time in the wilderness and not totally forgoing a city life,” he says.

Having developed what he calls a “survival nerve”, it wasn’t too long before the young pilot went into business for himself; a move that isn’t really all that removed from leaping off a cliff or swimming with sharks. McDougall refers to his outside activities when he muses, “It’s either something you’re born with or developed by being exposed to exciting things and situations, I still haven’t figured out which—maybe it’s both.” He could just as easily be talking about the rather woolly business of commercial transportation, or, for that matter, a third venture that McDougall undertook at around the same time—fatherhood. “They are all accomplishments that I’m happy about,” he reflects. “I’m still happily married. My daughter just turned 23 and flies a Boeing 727 based in Toronto.”

“Well, I met a guy the other
day that had climbed all seven of the highest peaks in the world, and he didn’t seem like too much of a superman,
so maybe...”

Not surprisingly for a man who views climbing the world’s seven highest peaks as an actual possibility, McDougall is delighted with the success of Harbour Air, even if his hunger hasn’t abated. “It seems totally mind-boggling to me that we have been doing this for that long,” he says of the company’s quarto-centennial. But asked if Harbour Air has exceeded his original ambitions, McDougall states, “That question is yet to be answered,” adding, “Never get complacent. That’s when bad things happen.”

It’s good advice, whether you’re sitting in a boardroom in Richmond or on a mountain bike atop a snow-capped volcano in South America.