Posted on Oct 11, 2017
This past Tuesday we heard a classification refresher talk from long time rotarian Patrick Gibson, (pictured), Patrick first joined Rotary as a charter member of the Canmore, Alberta club, twenty eight years ago.  
Patrick was born and raised in the Oshawa, Ontario area. His great grandfather had come from Ireland to Ontario and owned and operated a large livery stable in Oshawa, which supplied the horses for the local dairy, among other things.  As a young man, Patrick found he had a talent for metal working, but eventually decided to take carpentry to give himself more of a challenge. He met and married his wife Susan in Ontario and they travelled across Canada to the west coast, on their honeymoon. They stopped along the way in Banff, and really enjoyed the Mt Norquay area, as they liked to ski, and this was nothing like the ski hills back in Ontario. He was even offered a job as a carpenter in Banff at the time, but turned it down to return to Ontario.
 
Some years later, in 1976, they returned to Alberta and settled in Canmore, where he started his own construction business. He helped to build the smokestack for the powerplant, just outside of Canmore, and remembers well how scary it was hanging from cables that were anchored to the green (freshly poured two days earlier) concrete wall, and a long ways off the ground, putting the inside structure into place.  His company went on to work on many different buildings in and around Canmore, and also at Sunshine Village. He remembers it as a challenging time that meant working with a lot of different trades, often acting as a referee in order to get the job done properly and on schedule.
 
They stayed in Canmore for seventeen years, until his wife was offered a job in Vancouver, and they decided it was time to move on. Patrick also decided around this time that he would probably enjoy a different type of work, where he could be more independent, and decided that he might enjoy financial services as an occupation. He read a lot of books on the business and then started taking the courses required to become a financial planner. Once they had moved to Vancouver, he was offered a job in Financial Services and has never looked back. A few years later his wife was offered another job, this time in Edmonton, so they moved on again and have been in the Edmonton area ever since.
 
They have two daughters, one on Edmonton and one in Vancouver, both married, and have several grandchildren whom they love to spend time with. His wife retired two years ago, and Patrick is planning to retire at the end of this year.
He has always enjoyed solitary motorcycle touring, and intends to continue on with this, and spend more time taking photos, videos, and writing stories for his blog, Adventures on Two Wheels. He has already toured in quite a few countries and is thinking of adding a few more to the list. Some trips he would like to take are the California coast, Monument Valley in New Mexico and the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. He is also thinking he might branch out into off road motorcycle riding. Along with all of his other interests, and his rotary activities, I think Patrick will be busier than ever in retirement.
 
Patrick Gibson