My old friend Peter

This past winter, my old friend Peter Thomson, a proverbial lover of wine, women and song if ever there was one, died suddenly. I felt a grief that was shared by hundreds if not thousands of Vancouver businesspeople who had also been touched by him.

For 17 years, Peter was the Director of the BCIT Venture Development Centre (VDC), the oldest entrepreneur training operation in BC – and to my mind still the best. In that role he inspired, guided, and trained hundreds of would be entrepreneurs, most of whom are still operating businesses – sometimes in the second, third and fourth iterations. In many ways he contributed to the making of BC as Canada's entrepreneurial hothouse.

For most of these entrepreneurs, he remained a lifelong friend and advisor – there for them as they graduated and then navigated the emotional rhythms of entrepreneurship. When they were in despair at some inevitable business reversal, he lifted them up with a well chosen joke or two – as a classic raconteur, he had thousands. When they were flying high after some success that no one else could understand, he helped them enjoy the moment.

He did the same thing for me when I left my job and took the perilous jump into the entrepreneurial life – and believe me, it is a scary thing to chuck a safe job and try to create your own path in life by operating a business. For all his jolliness, Peter was an astute judge of people and knew what would lift them when they were down. In my case it was helping others, so he would call me in occasionally to help his students. It gave me a sense of self-worth when I most needed it.

Now, BCIT is appreciating Peter's contributions to BC's entrepreneurial community by launching a Peter Thomson Memorial Campaign to continue his work. It's renaming the Venture Development Centre The Peter Thomson Centre for Venture Development – Founding Partner: CIBC, which also acknowledges the bank as the original donor that helped the centre get going so long ago.

BCIT School of Business is aiming to raise $250,000 to create several initiatives. It wants to start a Peter Thomson Annual Networking Event for students, graduates and entrepreneurs – a kind of celebration of all things entrepreneurial. It also wants to set up a business centre for students to access the resources they need to start their own businesses. Lastly, it wants to establish an endowment to sustain these activities forever.

I'm not usually comfortable plumping for fund-raising events, but in this case, I'm putting aside my usual journalistic cynicism, and calling for donations.

For the initiatives, of course, but also because I think Peter would have thought an annual celebration of entrepreneurship would have been a real party.