HONORARY DEGREE

For more than three decades, Wayne Chiu has been dedicated to building communities. An award-winning businessman, activist and philanthropist, Mr. Chiu grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Hong Kong before moving to Canada to pursue an engineering degree from UM.

Over his distinguished career, he has made an extraordinary impact on communities in Canada and around the world through his unwavering passion for social entrepreneurship and his belief that business and society can work together toward common goals.

Mr. Chiu sees social entrepreneurship as an intersection of three overarching themes and actions that have resonated throughout his career: corporate social responsibility; philanthropic work; and being in a business that provides something meaningful to people.

As owner of Calgary-based Trico Group, which he founded in 1992, he has erected tens of thousands of single and multi-family homes in Alberta—including affordable units— and has partnered to provide subsidies to first-time homeowners. In 2015, Trico Homes worked to restore 159 Chiniki First Nation homes that had been destroyed by Alberta floods. Today Trico Homes continues to build homes for the Nation.

Over the years, Mr. Chiu has become a beloved benefactor in his adopted city of Calgary, supporting arts and culture, health and wellness, education, entrepreneurship, and social causes. Trico has also been named one of Canada’s top 50 best managed companies. In 2004, Trico was on a corporate retreat in Thailand when a catastrophic tsunami hit. As he clung to a tree watching misery below him, Mr. Chiu had an epiphany that led to him and his wife launching the Trico Charitable Foundation in 2008 that focuses on social entrepreneurship to use business to solve problems in society.

Mr. Chiu has also made an extraordinary impact through his support of the Women in Need Society (WINS). Providing promotion and financial support, he has helped the society to expand its efforts, growing communities and connecting women and their families with resources to thrive.

He has earned many accolades in honour of his business achievements and civic service. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and an appointee of the Alberta Order of Excellence and has been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond and Platinum Jubilee Medals. He has also been graced with the Alberta Centennial Award. Other awards of note are the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of Year Award, the Immigrant of Distinction Award, and the Calgary Citizenship Award. Most recently, Mr. Chiu received the award for Canada’s Most Admired CEO, the Alberta Business Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Distinguished Business Leader Award from the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

The University of Manitoba is proud to award a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, to Wayne Chiu in recognition of his life-changing impact as a builder, activist and philanthropist and his dedication to growing and supporting communities in Western Canada.