The conference table. My business. Forty‑three years of my life.
The mediator’s pen stopped moving, and I watched my brother’s smile fade for the first time in six months. That morning started like any other court day. I’d been in mediation for three weeks, listening to my younger brother, Marcus, explain why he deserved half of Morrison Custom Carpentry—the business I’d built from nothing while he was getting his third degree in Vancouver.
The mediator, Diane Chen, seemed sympathetic to his case. Too sympathetic. I’d later find out why, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me take you back to where this really began. Not six months ago when Marcus filed his lawsuit. Not even three years ago when our father died.
This started forty‑three years ago, in 1982, when I was twenty‑one and young enough to believe that hard work and family loyalty meant something. I’d just finished my apprenticeship as a carpenter in Calgary. Dad worked at the oil refinery.
Mom was a school secretary. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t comfortable either. Marcus was fourteen, already showing signs of being what my mother called academically gifted and what I privately called allergic to manual labor.
One night after dinner, Dad pulled me aside. “David, your brother’s going places. University?
Maybe graduate school. Smart kid. You know we can’t afford to send you both to university.”
I nodded.
I’d never been much for school anyway. “I know, Dad.”
“You’ve got good hands. You’re talented with wood.
Why don’t you start something of your own? I’ve got eight thousand dollars saved up. It’s yours if you want to build something.”
Eight thousand dollars.
In 1982, that was enough to buy tools, rent a small workshop, and survive for about six months if I was careful. I took it. I named the business Morrison Custom Carpentry, and I worked seventy‑hour weeks for the first five years—kitchen cabinets, furniture restoration, custom built‑ins for the new developments going up all over Calgary during the oil boom.
By the time Marcus graduated high school, I was employing three people. By the time he finished his first degree at UBC, I had twelve employees and had just landed my first commercial contract. By the time he got his PhD in economics, I’d built the premier renovation and custom‑carpentry business in Calgary with forty‑two employees and annual revenue of $4.8 million.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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