David Paul Werkland is a successful entrepreneur and a leader in Alberta’s oil and gas sector. Throughout his career, he has implemented environmental protection technologies and invested in youth leadership and community education. As a philanthropist, he dedicated considerable time and resources to the creation and development of his foundation, which funds projects that promote youth education. Read more about how an ordinary farmer became a successful entrepreneur and a generous individual who values his community, on calgaryski.net.
Childhood on the Farm
David was born in 1945 and grew up on a farm near the town of Valleyview in northwest Alberta. As a child, he learned the value of teamwork, as he lived with five brothers and sisters. Additionally, the children learned foresight and developed a love for innovation, inventing new tools that made their work on the farm more efficient.
Farming with his father taught David the principles of honest business and partnership. His father often asked David and his brothers to deliver hay to neighboring farms in the middle of winter, when their livestock was short of feed, or encouraged them to give slightly larger portions to acquaintances and neighbors when selling grain. These everyday lessons in honesty and camaraderie in business became guiding principles for David.
Early Jobs
These early years helped David and his siblings understand the value of hard work and innovation, but as a teenager, David became interested in life beyond the farm. Seeking his own path, he took a job on an oil rig. It was here that he developed his mental and emotional resilience, working with rather tough individuals. Interestingly, for self-defense, David kept a wrench in his pocket.
In 1965, David moved to Shell Canada as a production operator. Managing crews, he realized that owning a service company could be quite profitable. After five years of working, the 20-year-old Werkland decided to start his own business by founding Dave’s Oilfield Service.
Development of His Own Companies
David grew his oil company, Dave’s Oilfield Service, to around 150 employees, and in 1979, he founded a new company, Concord Well Servicing, which grew from a single rig to the third-largest well servicing company in Canada.
In 1984, David expanded into crude oil processing and waste management by founding Canadian Crude Separators (CCS) in Calgary. This oil and gas service company provides processing, recovery, and disposal services for oil fields in central and northwestern Alberta, northeastern British Columbia, and southeastern Saskatchewan.
David’s concern for the natural landscape has always motivated his environmental responsibility in all his oil industry ventures. For example, he inspired the CCS team to develop advanced environmental methods, which not only exceeded existing standards at the time but also set the benchmark for industry regulations in the province.
In 1994, CCS merged with Concord Well Servicing. Over the following decades, CCS acquired several companies, expanding its services from drilling to well reclamation. In 2012, CCS merged with 12 subsidiaries to form Tervita, a public company specializing in energy and environmental waste disposal services.
In August 2016, the company announced that it would not pay over $18 million on its senior unsecured bonds – the second delay in interest payments in four months. Soon after, Tervita announced plans to sell its non-core division, High Arctic Energy Services Inc., for $42.8 million. In 2021, Secure Energy Services, a Canadian public energy company based in Calgary, acquired the company. It specializes in processing and waste disposal in the oil and gas sector.
Werkland also became the chairman of Aveda Transportation and Energy Services – one of North America’s largest oil rig transportation companies; chairman of RS Technologies – a company producing composite poles; and chairman of Payload – an innovative technology company specializing in optimizing collaboration between manufacturers and service providers in the oil and gas industry.
Contribution to Youth Education
In 2006, David, along with his daughter Diane, founded the family organization Werklund Foundation. That same year, David, his daughter Diane, and his son Mark participated in a world-class leadership program, which ultimately shaped the future of the family foundation.
Diane realized that all the participants of the program would have liked to have gone through it earlier, in their teenage years, as it could have shaped their lives differently. She proposed to her father the creation of an innovative leadership initiative, Empowering Minds, designed to offer all teenagers the kind of education that would equip them with the skills necessary for success in life.
The Empowering Minds program was managed by the Werklund Foundation until June 2012, when it became an independent public charity. After 2012, the foundation continued to invest in youth through various charitable initiatives. Significant donations were made to the TELUS Spark Science Centre in Calgary, the Telus World of Science in Edmonton, AWALI for the creation of the Institute of Educational Development in East Africa, AWALI’s literacy programs in Tanzania, and the Werklund Foundation Youth Leadership Centre at the University of Calgary, among others.
David believes the public education system is the ideal tool for change. In 2013, he made the largest donation ever received by a faculty of education in Canada to the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Education. In honor of the donation, the faculty was renamed the Werklund School of Education.
In 2017, David and his wife Susan made a historic donation to Olds College of Agriculture and Technology – the largest donation in the history of the college or any technical institution in Alberta. These funds enabled the creation of the Werklund Institute of Agriculture, which offers an integrated leadership learning experience in agriculture, bringing together students, researchers, and the industry for smart and sustainable farming.
David and Susan have also shown great support for environmental conservation, including their backing of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, an organization dedicated to preserving and restoring nature. In 2014, they launched the Waldron Conservation Project to protect biodiversity on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.
Recognition
David’s dedication to business and philanthropic generosity has earned him numerous honors. He was named Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, inducted into the Calgary Business Hall of Fame, and the Canadian Oil & Gas Hall of Fame. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Calgary and an honorary degree in applied technologies from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. In 2006, the Globe and Mail, Financial Post, and Calgary Herald named Werkland one of the 50 most influential people in the province.