bcbusiness.ca february 2016 BCBusiness 43
(the stewardship branch of the Heiltsuk
First Nation, near Bella Bella), tells how
Hakai's weather station, water sampling
program and kelp research have led to
more informed decision-making and
planning for his department. "I think
there's a lot of really good work that's tak-
ing place between what we do and what
they're doing," says Brown.
Peterson himself is quick to disown
any save-the-earth motives, arguing the
institute is about providing good science
and letting decision makers use it as they
see t. Still, he takes evident pride in the
catalytic role Hakai is playing in coastal
science. "Monitoring our climate and
keeping track of those changes is a hugely
important thing for the human race,"
he says on the September voyage up to
Calvert. "It's exceedingly important."
Peterson–the eldest of four children
but without any of his own—drily com-
pares the purchase of Hakai Resort and
the establishment of the institute to
having o'spring: "Whether it was good
or bad is irrelevant. You got them now.
There's no turning back." From that
point on, his nature must have taken
over. "He's a person—and he's probably
been this way since he was a child—who
feels he just has to get on with things,"
says Munck, his wife of 35 years. His
brother Chris Peterson, a consulting
engineer in Victoria, puts it a di'erent
way: "When he focuses on something,
he's sort of unstoppable."
Born in 1949 in Port Alberni to an
architect father and social worker
mother, Peterson knew even as a child
that he wanted to be in science. By the
time he graduated high school, the
genetic code was just being cracked so he
changed his university major from math
to genetics, following his undergraduate
degree with a master's in genetics at
UBC.
There he witnessed rsthand the value
of pure research—science for science's
sake—which remains the guiding force
for Hakai's myriad science projects.
Throughout his UBC days, Peterson
would step away from school to travel
and work stints in industrial settings—on
a commercial shing boat, at a cannery,
in a pulp mill, at a sawmill. Even now,
Peterson is more comfortable in a blue-
collar milieu—among people with "practi-
cal skills," as he puts it. This might explain
why other business magnate-turned-
coastal-cause philanthropists demurred
from commenting on his accomplish-
ments for this prole. While aware of
his work, they simply didn't know him
well enough to comment—a testament
to the fact that Peterson is more likely to
be found ferrying sta' around Fitz Hugh
Sound than hobnobbing in Vancouver.
"I've very much told people like [our
support sta'], 'Do not be intimidated by
anyone that comes here —you are abso-
lutely everyone's equal,'" says Peterson.
Peterson—the eldest of four children but without any of
his own—drily compares the purchase of Hakai Resort
and the establishment of the institute to having o'-
spring: "Whether it was good or bad is irrelevant. You
got them now. There's no turning back"
