Canadian Business

"In reality, though, figuring out a way to actually do it came second to telling customers it could be done. “We went to customers and told them we could deliver six boxes with a day’s notice. And we developed a system to do that,” MacDonald added. “That’s the God’s truth. We’d make commitments and then we found ways to get it there.” Clearwater promised a high-quality product at a consistent price year-round, a bold pledge for a one-shop outfit in the Halifax suburbs. “When we say we can ship you three thousand pounds per week of one and one-quarter pound lobsters of good, hard shell for the next nine months at such and such a price, we mean it,” Risley told Canadian Business magazine in 1986. “Because we were a small company, we had to be willing to do all kinds of things the big companies weren’t willing to do—work seven days a week, send our shipments out at 2: 00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, offer better prices, whatever it took.” Though as Risley added a year later: “If we had known the consequences of our commitment, it’s doubtful that we would have continued in the business.”"

"Forming Newfoundland Capital Corporation in 1980, Steele directed the publicly traded company towards investments in transportation and communications. By 2000, Newfoundland Capital owned and operated four hotels in Newfoundland and Labrador and more than seventy radio and television stations from Deer Lake, Newfoundland, to Elkford, British Columbia. Most were located in small communities, although Steele added a smattering of larger locations such as Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton. Newcap’s operations may not be players in the giant competitive markets of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, but that’s just the way Harry Steele likes it. Steele’s business acumen has produced a steadily expanding core of assets, a comfortable margin of profit, and the elevation of his status, according to Canadian Business magazine, into one of the twenty most powerful business people in Canada."