He
came to Canada, age 22, from the town of Weizin the foothills of the Austrian
Alps. He had grownup in a working-class neighbourhood ravaged by war and
depression, leaving school at 14 years to apprentice as a tool and die
maker. Driven by a desire to travel the world, he arrived in Montreal,1954,
travelled by bus to Kitchener, Ontario, where he landed a job as a dishwasher
in a local hospital. After saving enough money, he moved to Toronto, 1957,
purchased some second-hand lathesand milling machines and set up shop.
Within one year, he had ten employees. Several decades later, Frank Stronach,
the young man who immigrated to Canada, had parlayed his business into
Magna International Inc., the world’s most diversified automobile parts
supplier with some 54,000 employees and annual sales over 14 billion dollars.
Creating a revolutionary new economic culture known as Fair Enterprise,
the cornerstone of which is a Corporate Constitution guaranteeing the rights
of employees, management, and investors to share in profits, Frank Stronach
is more than a householdname in Canada. A distinguished Canadian who has
helped bring to Canada international recognition with his racing stables,
Frank Stronach, Member, Order of Canada, is very much a visionary worldfigure
charting Magna’s growth as a prominent global leader in the automotive
industry. [Photo, courtesy Magna International]
