Surrounding yourself with exceptional people and building a winning team. It’s a recipe for success that Saskatchewan-born Lorne Hepworth has followed through three successful careers and now an appointment as Member of the Order of Canada.
This week, RealAgriculture’s Shaun Haney sat down with Hepworth to discuss his journey, which includes a career arc with roles such as farmer, veterinarian, politician, and industry executive.
Hepworth says being named to the Order of Canada is both humbling and gratifying and “really is a refection of a lot of the interesting things I’ve had a chance to do over the past 50 years.” He traces the roots of his ‘interesting’ life back to his 4-H club days while growing up in Assiniboia where he won the Dalgliesh Prize, which sent a young man, eager to learn, on a six-week trip to England and Scotland. “It was an eye-opening experience,” he says in reflection.
Now 76, Hepworth reflects on a career that began at the University of Saskatchewan where he studied to be a veterinarian in Saskatoon. After a 12-year run with his own practice at Weyburn, Sask., he started a second career in politics.
From 1982 to 1991 he represented Weyburn in the Saskatchewan legislature as a Progressive Conservative and served in the provincial cabinet as minister of six departments — including the agriculture, energy and mines, education and finance portfolios.
Career number three was spent in the plant and life science industry. He worked as president and CEO of what is now CropLife Canada, and played an influential role in the approval of genetically modified seed and its adoption to Canadian agriculture.
Check out the full interview below.
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