Harold Raymond “Harry” Steele has died in St. John’s at 92. Steele was an old school entrepreneur, who believed in doing what you said you’d do, when you said you’d do it. His mantra was, “If there was a problem, it had to be fixed, no excuses.”

Steele’s national profile came in the 1970s with his acquisition and successful ownership of money-losing Eastern Provincial Airlines. His biographer says the purchase agreement was worked out on a cocktail napkin. When Steele bought EPA it was losing $815,000 a year. In a bold-as-brass move he cut staff and offered profit-sharing to those who remained. Within five years company profit was over $4 million a year.

EPA’s routes took it to every Atlantic Canadian airport, most in destinations too small to interest the competition. After he managed to enter the lucrative Toronto-Halifax route, CP Air came calling. He sold EPA in 1984 for $20 million when red was the dominate colour of world aviation.

Like many before and since, Steele told a reporter, “If I knew then what I know now, I’d never have bought it (the airline).”

Over the years his tightly-controlled family conglomerate, Newfoundland Capital Corporation Limited, bought and sold a number of companies across a variety of sectors. In addition to EPA, they owned and operated a helicopter company, ground transportation companies, ocean freight and container port. He bought a chains of community newspapers in Newfoundland and Ontario as well as the Halifax Daily News, which he sold to Southam Corporation. His sons convinced him to by a local radio station. One station became a chain of 101 stations. The stations were sold in 2018 for $523 million – two decades after Steele “retired”. The Steeles have since invested heavily in digital radio and auto dealerships in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Three things Steele would never sell were his homes in Musgrave Harbour and Gander, and the Albatross Motel. The Albatross was a money-losing 90-room Gander property when Steele bought it. It was one of his first business successes and became a type of talisman for him. Current Albatross manager and 41-year employee, Rex Avery, told local media when Steele was in Gander he was at the Albatross for coffee or a meal, “and to make sure customers were being taken care of. … Whenever he could do something for the staff, he did it.”

At the time of his death the Steele Hotels group owned seven properties, including the Albatross, with 615 bedrooms in Gander, Corner Brook and St. John’s.

Steele was born in Musgrave Harbour (pop. 1,400), which is an hour from Gander and four-and-a-half-hour drive north of St. John’s. When he was born Newfoundland was a still a British colony. Newfoundland joined Canadian confederation in 1949, when Steele was 20. To instill the value of education the new provincial government under Joey Smallwood offered $300 grants to anyone who studied to become a teacher. Steele didn’t want to be a teacher, but he also didn’t want to become a fisherman like his father.

He attended Memorial University where he went into the University Naval Training Division, which lead to a 24-year career in the Royal Canadian Navy. Postings took him from England, to Nova Scotia as communications instructor, the Canadian Embassy in Washington and finally as Base Commander in Gander.

Other than his family, his great passion was fishing. Steele owned several fishing lodges in Labrador where he contemplated business and entertained fellow anglers like former US President George HW Bush.

He had the Order of Canada, an honourary degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia Business Halls of Fame, and had several buildings named for him.

He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Catherine (Thornhill), three sons (Peter, Rob, John), two daughters-in-law and nine grand-and-great grandchildren.

Condolences may be sent to www.Carnells.com