Banker never gave up on climb up ladder

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A new addition to the Alberta banking community never aimed much past high school as a young man, thinking a career as a professional was unattainable.

But now, after years of study and hard work, Ron Scrimshaw is the regional co-ordinator for Aboriginal business for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Alberta.

His territory includes Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Although the N.W.T. is quite different than Alberta, the bank's goals are the same for both.

"They expect quality service, too, which meets their needs. That doesn't mean the services will be exactly the same, because they may need different services, different products."

Because distances between settled areas and towns in the N.W.T. are so great, there are no banking services throughout the territories yet. This means banks have to figure out how to service their clients when they may not have access to a bank or banking machine, while appreciating the uniqueness of each situation.

"That's what makes the job so interesting," he says.

Scrimshaw, a Metis from Big River, Sask. is the son of a commercial fisherman. He used to spend time on the boat with his parents at Dore Lake. He and his mother later moved to Telkwa, B.C. near Smithers, where he went to school with Ron George, now head of the Native Council of Canada.

He spent his young adulthood in southern Alberta and B.C. He worked as a rail switchman for the former Columbia Cellulose, which inspired him to return to school.

"I'd be out in the rain and the mud and I'd look at these engineers inside looking through a big picture window, and I'd want to be one of them."

He headed for Mount Royal College in Calgary, where he got his high school diploma and spent two years studying engineering.

At that point, he had no thoughts of going on to university, thinking everyone

who attended university had to be brilliant. But after he spent some time with young professional people, he realized they weren't any smarter than he was and he, too, could get a degree.

He then went to Brigham Young University in Utah, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Business Management degree. An MBA from West Texas State University followed and a PhD in Education from Brigham Young came sometime later.

He returned to Canada after he got his MBA, but he couldn't find a job. He finally landed an articling position with a Prince George firm, a job he didn't like, so he took a better offer that paid 50 per cent more. Next he got a job on Siksika at the Old Sun Campus, where he quickly became director.

From there, he held a variety of positions, including working on the Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline Project for Nova. While there, he started the Native Education Awards Program, which is a front runner and model for many similar projects in Alberta. He was also executive director of Indian and Northern Affairs Secretariat in Saskatchewan before joining the CIBC in October of 1993.

One of his goals at the CIBC is to create innovative business services for emerging business opportunities.

"Our objective is to find solutions," he says.

An existing goal and one he will continue to work on is increasing employment of Aboriginals in the bank. The CIBC wants to increase its percentage of Aboriginal employees in Alberta to reflect the population of the province.

In the N.W.T., it wants one-half of its Yellowknife staff to be Aboriginal and, in five years, to have Aboriginal employees account for at least one-half of all staff outside Yellowknife

The bank is also looking at ways to increase the amount of goods and services it buys from businesses owned by Aboriginals.