“If there is a providence that guides our lives, and I believe there is, then He has been particularly kind to me”, Steve says.  He goes on, “not everyone at my age gets to do what they love and love what they do.  As I look back over the course of my life, it seems all of my life’s experiences conspired to prepare me for where I am today.” 

Steve first became interested in horses as a result of a PE program he took as he attended Ernest Manning High School in Calgary. The class took two weeks of riding lessons at a riding facility on the outskirts of Calgary.  Steve was bitten by the bug.  To stay in touch with horses, he began to attend weekend and winter camps with Pioneer Ranch Camps in Sundre and Rocky Mountain House in central Alberta. “I became something of a fanatic.  While there were other activities at the camp, riding was pretty much all I did.  The wranglers took me under their wing, showed me the ropes and let me work along side them.” 

During his last year in high school, Steve started developing the vocational skills that he would use for much of his working life.  At age 17, he started building wood frame houses and condominiums all over Calgary during the afternoons while attending his last semester of high school in the morning.  “It was a great experience for a young man.  Larry, our boss, was very patient with me at the outset and the crew, all of which were older than me, took the time to teach me to build fast and to build well.”

 Steve graduated from Ernest Manning in the spring of 1977 with high honors.  After building houses for the summer months, he enrolled at Trinity Western College (now TWU), first in a course of liberal arts and social studies, but then transferring into the faculty of science where he worked towards a biology major.  In addition to biology courses, he studied the other sciences including chemistry, physics, microbiology, calculus and economics.  Steve did not graduate from Trinity Western as they did not have degree granting status at that time, but he did achieve notable grades consistently at the top of all his classes.  In addition to his own studies, Steve worked as a teacher’s assistant in a number of the lab courses such as first year biology, microbiology and cell biology. 

 Steve continued to exercise his interest in horses by serving his summers at Timberline Ranch Camp in Maple Ridge B.C.  He worked two summers there schooling horses, teaching horsemanship and assisting with the ranch maintenance. 

 Weary of school and short of money, in the fall of 1980, Steve left the lower mainland for Squamish where he spent a year building again.  “Squamish was good for me,” Steve says, “We built a number of commercial properties including a medical clinic.  This was important experience for me as I later built commercial property for myself.”

 In the fall of 1981, Steve returned to school: this time to the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of British Columbia.  He studied animal physiology and nutrition with the possible future as a large animal veterinarian in mind.  “UBC was a lot of fun for me”, Steve reports.  “Because I had so much previous credit in the general sciences, I got to play the field at UBC.  I took extra courses in soils, forestry, range management, economics—all kinds of stuff.  It made my time there a lot more interesting.” 

 Steve graduated from UBC in 1984 with his B.Sc. (Agriculture) with high honors.  In addition to his high grades, he was awarded academic scholarships in 1982, 1983 and was awarded the Dean Blythe Eagles Medal upon graduation.  Daunted by the notion of 6 more years of post secondary education, and, newly married to Cindy, Steve did not choose to move on to vet school.

 “Continuing on in school just didn’t make sense.  The academic track I was on led to either lab work, agricultural rep work, or government work.  None of these appealed to me.  I am a business man through to the core of my being.  I am a hands-on kind of guy.  Working for the government would have driven me nuts.”