ENTREPRENEUR SHARES LESSONS
Dhillon aims to pass on to students what he’s learned
Not that long ago, he dreamt of becoming the first Sikh billionaire in Canada.
And Bob Dhillon may still get there, given the remarkable and sustained success of his Mainstreet rental property company, based in Calgary.
But although his company is relentlessly moving ahead — snapping up rental units, renovating them and putting them back on the market across most of Western Canada — Dhillon has his sights on a grander goal.
It’s why he recently made a $10-million donation to the University of Lethbridge, a gift that resulted in a major change to the curriculum of the college’s business school, which now bears Dhillon’s name.
Dhillon helped craft what aspiring entrepreneurs attending the university will be taught, and he plans to be hands-on in making sure the business school develops into a major hub of innovation and forward thinking.
He said it’s a way of giving back to the country he loves and gave him the chance to succeed in such a remarkable fashion.
“I am a first-generation Sikh immigrant and I’m sending a message to all the immigrants — Canada’s the greatest country in this world, and we have all been given enormous opportunities,” he said.
“You can come here with no money and no education and you can make a life for yourself, and I think us immigrants have to give more back than people who were born here.
“I am hoping to set a trend for all the other immigrants that are doing really well. I see many of them and they have worked really hard and done well, but too often their comments are just: ‘Oh, I worked hard so that’s why I am successful.’ Instead, I say to them, Canada gave you the opportunity to work hard and that’s why you are successful,” said Dhillon.
His own success did not come easy. He was born Navjeet Singh Dhillon in 1965 in Japan — a country his parents had moved to from Hong Kong to take advantage of the business boom brought on with reconstruction after the war.
While still a child, his parents moved the family to Liberia, once again attracted by a chance to profit from burgeoning trade.
A brutal civil war put an end to that dream and his parents’ trading business and, in the early 1970s, the Dhillon family was on the move again, this time as economic refugees to Canada — first to Vancouver, then eventually to Calgary.
“I came to Calgary in my late teens, and by the time I was 20 I was flipping real estate, and I’ve been hard at it ever since,” Dhillon said.
Often sleeping in his car so he’d be first in line for distressed property sales, Dhillon discovered a niche with little competition.
“I was a bottom feeder. Eighty per cent of the market is in small buildings and no one else was going after the small buildings,” he said.
That keen eye for a deal and hard work built Mainstreet Equity into one of this country’s fastest growing rental companies. The latest year-end results, released Thursday, again showed that despite tough times in many western markets, Mainstreet could buck the trend.
Dhillon’s company now owns more than 12,000 residential units valued at about $1.9 billion and recorded double-digit growth in 2018, the best annual results since the downturn began four years ago.
“Lots of people can make money when things are booming. It’s a lot harder when times are tough. But this shows that it isn’t all doom and gloom here in Alberta. With hard work, you can still be successful,” he said.
It’s a message and a philosophy he is determined to pass along to youth aiming for a future career in business. Dhillon believes the University of Lethbridge is perfectly situated to help such dreams come true for would-be entrepreneurs.
“The University of Lethbridge Business School, which is now the Dhillon School of Business, worked for years on how we can change the curriculum to attract the brightest people to come here by offering the most innovative courses, so when they come out they can tackle this new world,” he said.
He added that the new curriculum includes areas such as the rise of Bitcoin, the usage of block chain, wealth management, emerging technology, industrial trends and how to invest, while still maintaining traditional core courses.
Dhillon also sees an opportunity to attract some of the brightest young minds from across the world by taking advantage of moves in the U.S., where President Donald Trump is demanding a reduction in such visas being awarded to overseas scholars.
“If we want to transform ourselves, we need to capture all these future tech gurus and bring them to Canada,” said Dhillon.
“It is a golden chance for us to reverse the brain drain. Some of the people now transforming Silicon Valley are Canadians, and we need to bring those abilities back here.
“You cannot create a tech industry without the brain power, and we have an opportunity to reverse that,” he said.
“Western Canada also has an opportunity to have a college town like Kingston, London or Waterloo (in Ontario), and I believe Lethbridge is ideally situated to become that destination college town,” he added.
It’s been a long journey, and he learned a lot along the way.
Now, Dhillon wants to pass along those lessons to a new generation in the country he believes is the best in the world.
Iama first-generation Sikh immigrant and I’m sending a message to all the immigrants — Canada’s the greatest country in this world.