In Memoriam

February 2020

We are profoundly sad to have to tell you that Neil Whan, our Ontario Regional Manager, died suddenly last week in Nanaimo, BC, en route to our staff meetings. His death leaves a gaping hole in all our lives, both personally and professionally. None of us were simply colleagues of Neil – he was our close friend. His loss is a crushing blow – not least, of course, to his partner, Kate, and his young son, Malcolm.

Neil Whan worked for Brinkman for 27 years. Over the years he worked in almost every capacity. Neil began as a planter, then became a crew-lead, a tree runner, a project manager and finally a regional manager across our operations in Canada. He somehow found time for viewing, and cone-picking with the infamous Onceler. He burned slash piles and worked at the seed orchard. He was a part of absolutely everything Brinkman is today.

Neil first arrived in Thunder Bay in the spring of 1993, joining his older brothers, Eric and Cary in what appeared to be the family tradition of tree planting. And from the start, Neil was a hub in the camp. He was warm and charismatic, and cocky too, with a little bit of the punk in him, a cigarette perpetually burning between his lips. But at the same time he managed somehow, to come across like everyone’s favourite younger brother.

Planting became his life. Its itinerant lifestyle suited Neil. In those early years, he planted as much as he could, travelling from Ontario to Alberta and BC. He worked with James DeVries, Mark Kuhlberg and Chris Serratore, but most often with John Lawrence, who saw immediately the great promise in that charming dreadlocked kid.

Neil started crew-bossing for John in 1996 and took over John’s camp in 2000 at the tender age of 27. He was a natural leader and much-loved. His staff worked hard for him because he worked so hard for his crew. They were in it together. Those early years were a learning curve for everyone. As Neil’s longtime crew lead, and later his sister-in-law, Robin McCullough, said: We were a scruffy young band getting there sideways and loving it.

In the unforgiving and often remote clear-cuts of Northern Ontario they trusted Neil for his guidance and his friendship, along with the more mundane-seeming details of their income and their food, their safety and their day-to-day schedules.

Neil was funny and he was kind, and eternally generous. He was self-deprecating too, and used that trait to make everyone feel that their particular talent was a remarkable one, absolutely integral to the success of the program. He was equally clear that whatever they didn’t know wasn’t really important anyway. Neil was everyone’s equal, nothing more, and that was true whether he was patiently teaching you how to start the pump, load the quad, drive the bus and even the bombi, or making million-dollar decisions in the dark of a frigid night in June with the snow coming down. You could ask him anything without fear of judgment. He was possessed of an incredibly rare and wide-ranging skill-set. He was the high-school dropout who, it turned out, could do everything.

In 2005, Neil fell hard for Kate McCullough, and she for him. Each was the youngest child in a planting dynasty. They worked together in the field, and then moved to Thunder Bay in 2009, buying a house, and planting a new sort of roots in the city. Brinkman’s business in Ontario grew quickly at that point and this was surely no coincidence. Malcolm came along in 2013. He was, from that day on, Neil’s best buddy.

Neil had a lifetime job with Brinkman, yes, and he was marvelous at it, one of the best the industry has seen, whether he was running small one-off projects or one of his regular big shows, whether organizing equipment or his people, or talking to clients. We will always be grateful for his choosing to dedicate so much time to us. The formidable beard he adopted in later years made Neil appear - like John Lawrence - an elder statesman of sorts. And he was. But more even than that, he was a loyal and loving partner and a fiercely devoted father. He would insist on you knowing that he lived in service of his family every day, even when fielding the late-night call from the bush camp, and especially when he had to climb into the truck and head off to work.

We will, in short, miss him intensely. We will plant every tree in his name. And as his brother Eric wrote earlier this week: “Whether you know it or not, each of us has been influenced by Neil’s wisdom and warmth, his quick logic and lasting love, his generosity and gregariousness, and by his devotion and dedication.”

There will be a memorial for Neil at a later date.