Meek tells extraordinary story of Louis Deveau

Honestly, I would not have cracked the book if not for the name on the cover. And it wasn't the name of the book's subject that drew me in, but that of its author.

The subject is Louis Deveau, the author Jim Meek.

Meek was a colleague at The Chronicle Herald threeplus decades back and has been a friend — although infrequent companion — since. Among journalists in these parts, in my view, Meek is the best writer, full stop.

Maybe I opened the book to see — rather shamefully — if time and perhaps a little rust had taken a toll on Meek's prose, as they have on his golf game.

I should have known better. Meek's writing is as crisp and sparkling as ever.

Once the green-eyed monster was gone, I was left with nothing but admiration for a craftsman who remains at the height of his considerable powers.

I likely could have saved some words and, at the outset, said this book is a pleasure to read, both for the writing and the remarkable story it tells.

Which brings us, not nearly as seamlessly as Meek would, to the subject at hand.

As more than a casual observer of most things Nova Scotian, I know Deveau to be a rare breed. A guy from the French Shore who, by dint of perseverance and faith in science, built an internationally successful business from scratch or, if not from scratch, from seaweed.

Possessed of that biographical sketch, and a hazy awareness that Acadian Seaplants is a global pioneer in extracting gold — well, not gold, but more value than ever before — from seaweed, I figured I knew all I needed or wanted to know about the company and its founder.

If you've read this far, you likely already know that the unjustified arrogance of the barely informed — that would be me — dissipated after a few pages, and soon dissolved altogether as I became utterly engrossed in the remarkable life story of Deveau — a story I knew not at all before the reading.

It's a great story in the hands of a great story-teller. The product is a book that should be read.

Meek traces Deveau's life from its humble beginnings (Yes, that is a cliché, but when it's the truth, what are you going to do?) through the education and work experience that helped to forge the most creative, innovative and astute Nova Scotia businessman of his generation.

That bold claim is one I would not, and could not, have made before reading Cultivating Success, The Life of Acadian Seaplants Founder Louis Deveau, published by Nimbus. Meek paints vivid pictures of every significant step — almost to date — along Deveau's life journey (he is now a youthful 90), and at each stop we discover how the curious kid or the percipient man absorbed the lessons around him, and later put them to admirable use.

While much of the book is devoted to Deveau the builder, innovator and creative businessman, the reader is left with no doubt that at his core, he is a family man.

From his Depression-era childhood in Salmon River, Digby County, with loving, encouraging parents, to “an enduring and endearing partnership” with his wife of 64 years, Fedora, to their five kids and their kids' kids, family is front and centre in Deveau's life.

His eldest child, Jean-paul (JP), came into the business in 1986, just about five years after his dad started the company, and rose to its leadership, not because of his name but because he “shared Louis' vision, his passion and his values.”

The story benefits greatly by Meek's gift for framing the events in Deveau's life and career in the broader events occurring in the nation or the world, all of which circle back to impact or influence Deveau's interests.

For example, Quebec's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s led to an awareness of “the French fact” in Canada and to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's passion for bilingualism.

All of that came at a propitious time for College Sainteanne, Deveau's beloved alma mater, which had fallen on hard times.

Louis Comeau, the MP for South West Nova at the time, was lured back from Ottawa to run the college — Meek tells a wonderful tale of the political machinations that produced that result — and Comeau recruited Deveau to the school's board of governors. Deveau later served as chancellor of Universite Saint-anne.

Together, the two men were instrumental in resurrecting the college and setting it on course to become the vibrant French-language university it is today, thanks in no small measure to funding that became available from Ottawa to further the cause of bilingualism.

Deveau's career and his life were not without obstacles, from a debilitating illness to political intrigue.

Meek relays each but, like his subject, doesn't dwell on the problems, because invariably Deveau found a way to overcome each and every one.

Rather, this is a story of success and of the man who made it happen. But it is much more than that, and more than worth the read.