Ivey Lives Remembered
Gerald Loree Knowlton, HBA ’55
1933-2025
Gerald Knowlton was a builder — of companies and skylines, but also of his family, employees, traditions, and futures.
by Sara Kelly
Allan Jackson, HBA ’65, worked for 20 years at Knowlton Realty — the Calgary, Alta.-based commercial real estate company that Gerald Knowlton, HBA ’55, built and expanded to six cities across North America. One day, Knowlton came into Jackson’s office describing a complex land deal. Astonished by what he heard, Jackson asked, “When did you negotiate that?” Knowlton replied, “They don’t know about it yet, but that’s my plan.” And that’s how Knowlton willed the iconic, four-building Bow Valley Square in downtown Calgary into existence.
The son of a Canadian Pacific Railway stationmaster, Knowlton grew up in the Standard, Alta. railway station. “He learned the value of hard work at an early age,” says grandson Harrison Méan, HBA ’14. Grandson Alex Purdy, HBA ’06, adds that his humble upbringing “shaped his appreciation for opportunity. He understood talented people don’t always have the same resources or connections.”
In a Fall 2005 Intouch interview, Knowlton recalled first hearing about Ivey, then the Western Business School, from a church visitor when he was 12, and the rest was history. At Ivey, he met Mary Janet, his wife of 62 years. Four of their five daughters and four grandchildren also graduated from Western. Granddaughter Emily Duggan, HBA ’14, took the Ivey Pledge alongside her grandfather at her convocation. “It was special how excited he was. Ivey always meant a lot to him … once he got the ring, he never took it off. He wore it with pride and made sure I saw he was wearing it when I visited.”
Knowlton stayed connected with Ivey as an active volunteer and generous donor. He served on both the Western Board of Governors (1989-93) and the Ivey Advisory Board (1972-98), receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Calgary Alumni Chapter in 2014. Among his many gifts to the School was the Knowlton Family Rural Alberta Award, which provides students from rural Alberta with $10,000 during their first two years at Western, with an additional $20,000 if they attend Ivey.
“He never forgot the opportunities that education and hard work had afforded him. He wanted others from similar backgrounds to benefit from the same opportunities that had transformed his life,” says Méan. Purdy adds that Knowlton’s generosity was often directed at helping people build a better future. “He didn’t view philanthropy as separate from the rest of his life; it was consistent with how he led his family and business. He wanted to create the conditions for people to achieve their potential.”
Knowlton’s childhood also inspired a lifelong passion for trains. A favourite way to travel with family, he was also a collector — but not of models. In 1980, he bought a decommissioned railway station with the same layout as the one he grew up in and moved it to 54 acres south of Okotoks, Alta. Together with full-sized rail cars he’d collected and 1100 feet of tracks, he named it Champion Park and enjoyed the property for many years with family and friends before gifting it to the town of Okotoks and Foothills County in 2016.
From companies and skylines to his family and the railway park, Knowlton built things meant to last — including opportunities for students he would never meet. As Jackson says, “He left the world better than he found it and encouraged others to do the same.”