Okanagan

"To become a serious bidder, Sealand would require a fleet of helicopters similar to Okanagan’s aging Sikorsky s-61s. To chase the contracts Dobbin would have to upgrade his fleet. But instead of the economical option of buying or leasing his own Sikorskys, he chose a strategy that became a hallmark for both the remarkable successes and the various crises the company encountered over the next twenty years."

"The appeal to Dobbin may have been more than an opportunity to add to Sealand’s bottom line. It might have been personal. Dobbin’s winning the offshore oil contract from Okanagan a few years earlier had deeply angered one of Okanagan’s larger shareholders, John Lecky. Since that time, Lecky had acquired control of Okanagan, and Craig Dobbin may have enjoyed the chance to challenge him again, the son of a St. John’s lumber dealer matching wits with the Cambridge-educated sophisticate who was heir to the MacMillan Bloedel fortune. Many businesspeople, including Harry Steele and Robert Foster, liked and admired Lecky. Craig Dobbin did not. “John Lecky inherited a billion dollars,” Dobbin once noted, “and it’s become his hobby to blow it all away.”"

"Robert Foster made his pitch to potential investors based in part on the performance of recently acquired Toronto Helicopters. The addition to Sealand was an established, well-run organization whose steady cash flow promised to alleviate Sealand’s fiscal problems. Adding Okanagan would make Sealand a healthy operation capable of riding out future financial difficulties. The response from Bay Street investors was decidedly cool; as J.C. Jones put it, “Everywhere we went we got sand kicked in our faces.”"

"Hurdles needed to be jumped. Pat Aldous had assumed that he would remain cEo of Okanagan as an independent corporation. No, Dobbin informed him, the two companies would be merged into one. In that case, Aldous proposed, he should be named cEo of the new company, since he held the top post in Okanagan. Again, no; J.C. Jones, who just a few years earlier had reported to Aldous, would serve as Aldous’s new boss. “Craig Dobbin was loyal to me,” Jones said. “He believed you went home from the dance with the person you came with.”"