Husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, safety specialist, fisherman. Born Oct. 21, 1947, in Goderich, Ont. Died Jan. 9 in Calgary of metastatic renal cancer, aged 63.
Terry Rathwell’s childhood in small-town Ontario was one of carefree play and mischievous adventure. That mischievousness became his most defining characteristic.
The youngest of four children of Gerald and Violet Rathwell of Lucknow, Ont., Terry always seemed to be in a hurry. He was the first of his siblings to marry and become a father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He married Linda Mann, his high-school sweetheart, in 1968. They had two children, Jackie and Gerald.
At 22, Terry took over sole responsibility for the family shoe business upon the death of his father of Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was the third generation to be involved in the shoe business. Terry was a charter member of the Lucknow and District Kinsmen Club, and served as president. He was also a volunteer fireman for the Lucknow fire department.
The shoe business wasn’t for Terry, and upon the death of his mother in 1975 from a pulmonary embolism, he sold it and joined the fire department of Ontario Hydro’s Bruce generating plant.
Terry’s true calling began when he was recruited to the safety departments of Syncrude in 1977 and Shell Canada in 1980. With Shell came the opportunity to work internationally in Holland and Scotland. Terry left Shell UK in 1989 and co-founded Six Forty-one Ltd., a company based in Aberdeen, Scotland, specializing in risk management and safety audits and training, mainly for the oil industry. The safety audits meant spending days at a time on oil rigs in the North Sea, Atlantic and Northern Canada, giving Terry a deep appreciation for those who worked under such trying conditions.
The company expanded rapidly, and Terry returned to Calgary in 1990 to set up Six Forty-one Canada. When the business was sold to Liberty Mutual Insurance in 1997, Terry remained as managing director. In 2004, he took early retirement but continued working as a risk-management consultant. Much to Linda’s chagrin, retirement did not mean more leisure time but still doing the work he loved: laying the foundations for reducing industrial accidents and saving lives.
Terry’s work took him all over the globe. He and his brother Tom had an unofficial contest over who visited the most countries. Terry edged home the winner at 44/43.
While Terry enjoyed oil painting and woodworking, his real passion was fishing. His lifelong love of fishing started in early childhood when a picture in the local paper showed Terry, Tom and childhood friend Donald Fisher with a large brook trout. That small beginning led to fishing expeditions throughout Western Canada and Alaska.
By Thomas Rathwell, Terry’s brother, Linda Rathwell, Terry’s wife, and Barbara Helm and Beverly Rathwell, Terry’s sisters.
