Levi Sampson: Humble Hero

This angel investor saves companies by giving power back to the employees.

Levi Sampson is the quiet power behind a pulp mill, a TV station, a nonprofit and still manages to prioritize family life.
Levi Sampson is the quiet power behind a pulp mill, a TV station, a nonprofit and still manages to prioritize family life. Photo: Jeffrey Bosdet.

At 27 he resuscitated a company near death by instituting an employee-ownership model. The following year he did the same thing with a very different business, a TV station. And he did it all without flash, without ego and with generous community mindedness.

In 2008, Levi Sampson used his family money and negotiating savvy to pull Nanaimo’s Harmac Pacific mill out of receivership and hand it to the employees to run. In 2009, he “pulled a Harmac” at CHEK TV, again saving a long-established institution from creditors. CHEK has since more than doubled its employee-owners from 36 to 80. Same thing at Harmac, expanding from 220 to 350.

Sixteen years later, legacy firmly established, Levi Sampson is comfortable and cool-headed in the boardrooms of both Harmac Pacific, where he sits as president of the pulp company, and at CHEK, where he is chairman. And for 11 years he’s been integral to the David Foster Foundation, sitting on the board of a charity that provides financial support to Canadian families with children in need of life-saving organ transplants.

Born in small-town Saskatchewan, raised in Surrey and a longtime resident of Victoria, Sampson is 43, married with two young daughters, and appears surprisingly young — lean and fit, and still looks like the guy who once ran the 100 metres in 10.3 seconds.

Asked what he thinks power in business looks like, Sampson immediately deflects. It’s not about him. It’s about those around him. “It’s not any one person that’s made the companies successful.”

A typical Sampson response.

With both companies doing well, what keeps you busy away from the boardroom?

Parenting. My wife, two kids. Both companies are well established now and doing well and so it allows me to step back in certain areas and just focus on a work-life balance — soccer practice, dance practice, all those sorts of things.

How do you tend to describe yourself?

I’d say entrepreneur. I’m always willing to take chances and bet on the underdog. I’ve found happiness by taking two companies employee-owned.

What’s your style of leadership? Rah-rah or a quiet approach?

I think there are times for a rah-rah, but I’m not a loud guy by nature. I listen, assert my views when I think they’re needed. My leadership style is to allow people to do their best job, be the best worker they can be. Most of the jobs, that person knows their job far better than I ever will.

Why is the employee-ownership model a success in these two very different businesses?

The big thing that’s made both successful is both still have a union and, in both situations, they were going under so there was motivation by the workforce and management to try anything they could to make things work. But you also needed big enough people on both sides — union and management — to come together and decide, hey, we’re going to make a go of it and it’s just us. There’s no big parent company.

The forest products industry has a history of labour disruptions. Has Harmac, run by its employees, changed that?

Yeah, there’s a long past of union versus management, butting heads and strikes … and we’ve seen a complete change of that with Harmac becoming locally owned. And at both companies there are less sick days, less injury days, and you have more people that feel they have a voice. You’re seeing a more productive workforce, a happier workforce and also, if the company does well, you do well.

After Harmac, why did you think employee-ownership would work at CHEK?

I quickly saw that the will was there. They have strong leaders on both sides. Just like Harmac, at CHEK there were different potential investors that were in and out during the process. We settled on a group that was serious and committed.

Pulp and TV have both been called sunset industries. Is it risky to invest in industries that are precarious?

It is more than risky. But the reward on the other side, to see them up and thriving, has been enormous. Every time we do a dividend payout at either operation, it’s a real point of joy for myself and the other investors and workers.

In an interview five years after you saved Harmac, you said, “We just go lean and mean and do things a little different.” Is that still the case?

It is. There were obviously lots of changes you could make initially, but there still are changes and both industries are ever evolving. I think one of the big problems that Harmac had was its former owners had multiple mills in B.C., but the head office was based in Portland, Oregon, where all the higher-ups were.

So they didn’t necessarily see, on a day-to-day basis, what was going on in these operations. Lots of times the managers would make recommendations and they fell on deaf ears.

Do you subscribe to any sort of business ethic?

I believe there’s a proper way to treat people. You want your companies to reflect your values. And the way you treat your customers or advertisers. You have to be aware when they’re going through hard times. They might have been someone who stuck with you during your hard times so you should reciprocate if you get the chance.

What would you like people to know about Levi Sampson?

Loyal, hardworking, willing to put myself out there, willing to take chances, always looking for the right people to work with. I’ve found my most success in business or charity with the people who have a genuine interest in what they’re doing, not just because they’re employed there, but because they love what they’re doing.

What was it like sprinting at an elite level against Olympians like Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin?

I’d always kind of see their backsides. It was one of those sports where you stick out as a white guy on the sprinting line [laughs]. I didn’t have too many delusions. In sprinting, bits of a second mean a huge difference. A 10.3 is very far off of a sub 10. I had great fun doing that and did it as long as I could. It’s the kind of thing I could take up in Masters later on.

There is success in sports. Translating that to business, is it helpful?

It definitely is. You can do some pretty impressive things if you put your mind to it. So on the business front, I was also young enough at the time that taking big risks was easier than now that I have two children.

Why did you want to be on the board of the David Foster Foundation?

I always believed in increasing our organ donations in Canada. There’s always people on the list waiting for organs that pass away still waiting. Basically what the foundation does … they cover all your non-medical costs so you can just focus on being with your child.

We find that 85 per cent of families that have a child that needs a life-saving organ transplant end up in bankruptcy or divorce. You can just imagine the stresses on the family. This just takes that whole financial burden off and you can just worry about being with your child.