Fred MacGillivray‘s business and community life has been all about building relationships. Good relationships lead to success. And success is what’s followed Fred MacGillivray through life.

It started when he was eight years old and bringing groceries to neighbours after getting their orders at the door, collecting them at the store and delivering them. He was a newspaper carrier, he shovelled snow, mowed lawns, all the time building relationships with his customers. In 35 years in the food industry, MacGillivray reached the pinnacle of success in Atlantic Canada as president and CEO of Boland’s/IGA before being offered the opportunity that put Halifax, Nova Scotia and Fred MacGillivray, too, on the international sporting map.

In 1994, he joined Trade Centre Limited (TCL) as president and chief executive officer. TCL was doing well with conventions but MacGillivray realized pursuing other events– such as sporting events– was paramount in growing the business.

Fred had grown up with a promoter, his father Fred Sr., also a member of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame for his work with the Halifax Junior Canadiens hockey club in the 1960s. MacGillivray learned about relationships while doing promotional and statistical work with his father and the hockey club.

As CEO of the Trade Centre, he met with officials of Hockey Canada, the Toronto Raptors, and NHL. The doors started to open further when he met with Harold MacKay, who proposed bringing a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team to Halifax.

After seven years of high attendance, the Mooseheads and MacGillivray earned the right to host the Memorial Cup in 2001, an outstanding event with high calibre hockey and sold-out houses. In 2003, Halifax hosted the most profitable World Juniors yet, and a year later, the world women’s championship was played in Halifax, and in 2008 the world men’s championship (the first to be held in Canada) came to town. MacGillivray was Chair of the three events, the only man who has chaired the three events in one city in IIHF history.

MacGillivray also helped arrange to host the first Touchdown Atlantic Canadian Football League exhibition in Halifax, a world junior basketball tournament and major national and international curling events. Even the 21st G7 Summit in 1995, hosted in Halifax, with MacGillivray among the community organizing leaders, showed Halifax could put on an event of that size.

Not a man to stand still, he served as Chair of the board of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame for nine years and was instrumental in moving its location from a struggling downtown location into the Scotiabank Centre in 2006 where it has drawn tens of thousands of visitors annually.

MacGillivray’s enthusiasm for sport and events also grew a volunteer base to help run them. Future hosts developed confidence, legacy funds were established, athletes could set goals associated with watching their idols, and administrators learned how to hold first-class events. MacGillivray has since been called upon by other cities to speak about the model Halifax set.

*This biography was excerpted from the induction program article by Joel Jacobson*