people

James Shepard

James Shepard CEO, Canfor Corp. I was a middle manager at Finning International in 1982, and the business downturn at that time was very severe; we went from 2,400 employees to 1,200. Our CEO at the time, Vin Sood, told us in a management meeting that we were going to have to cut millions of dollars out of the cost structure of the company. And he said, “You need to know that the human spirit can endure an incredible level of pain, as long as people believe that the pain is being shared equally by all concerned."

By Jessica Werb /

James Shepard

CEO, Canfor Corp.

I was a middle manager at Finning International in 1982, and the business downturn at that time was very severe; we went from 2,400 employees to 1,200. Our CEO at the time, Vin Sood, told us in a management meeting that we were going to have to cut millions of dollars out of the cost structure of the company. And he said, “You need to know that the human spirit can endure an incredible level of pain, as long as people believe that the pain is being shared equally by all concerned.”
 

With that he proceeded to let us know that he was taking a significant pay cut and so were all of us. I’ve been going through the same thing since I started at Canfor in 2007. I gave myself a 25 per cent pay cut, the executives took 15 per cent, management took seven per cent and all the salaried people took three per cent. And the board got into the spirit and voted themselves a 33 per cent cut in their directors’ fees.

It’s applying what Vin said: “Nobody gets out of this thing unscathed. Everybody’s got to give.”