Born, Esfahan, Iran, 1949, Amir Etemadi, left, graduated, 1971, as an electrical engineer, Purdue University, and received his M.B.A., Loyola University, 1973, before immigrating to Canada, 1980, settling in Vancouver. Initially building or renovating a series of funeral homes, car dealerships, and custom homes in the Vancouver area, Amir discovered that his real niche was building ski resort accessories, such as lodges, villages, condominiums, town houses, and restaurants for ski resort sites at both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains north of Vancouver. When Amir’s company, Amako, founded, 1983, built the 52,000 square foot Roundhouse Lodge Alpine, capacity, 1,750 patrons, atop Mount Whistler, it superceded another of Amir’s creations, the 30,000 square foot Glacier Creek Restaurant, a top Mt. Blackcomb, as the world’s largest mountain-top restaurant. Amako has recently expanded beyond British Columbia’s acclaimed ski resorts, and currently is building a 327,000 square foot pedestrian village at Copper Mountain, Denver, Colorado. Amir’s company is also completing a condominium-hotel at Utah’s Solitude Mountain and is about to begin still another pedestrian village, this time at California’s Squaw Valley. No question that Amir Etemadi’s impact in the ski resort world offers ski buffs, worldwide, state-of-the art winter resort facilities unexcelled anywhere in the world. [Photo, courtesy Amir Etemadi]

 

Behrouz Tabarrok, right, was born in Tehran, Iran, 1939. His childhood years were spent playing by the Caspian Sea and wandering the great bazaars of the city of his birth. Sent to boarding school in England at age 13 years, Bez thrived in his new-found culture and married a British girl, Carolyn, 1963. After he earned his D. Philosophy from Oxford University, 1965, he and Carolyn immigrated to Canada where he was made Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Toronto. An exceptional teacher, scholar, and consultant, in 1977, Bez was made a full Professor. After another decade at University of Toronto, he was appointed Founding Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, British Columbia. In addition to being an esteemed teacher, scholar of renown, and a distinguished researcher, Dr. Tabarrok chaired and organized many international symposia, congresses and conferences. He also served as President, Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering. Before he died undergoing a heart by-pass operation, April 1999, Dr. Tabarrok was made Director, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria. The Institute has been a pioneer in the creation of  “fuel cells,” the key component in what may be a technological and social revolution – the transformation of an oil-based economy to one based on hydrogen. During his life, Dr. Tabarrok wrote some 250 articles for a series of international journals and conferences. He received numerous awards including the Proctor & Gamble Award of Merit, the Robert W. Angus Medal and the CSME Best Paper Award. Post humously, Dr. Tabarrok received from McMaster University the annual CANCAM Award, 1999. He leaves behind his wife, three children, and a grandson. In this view, Dr. Bez Tabarrok addresses an international symposium, Shanghai, 1987. [Photo, courtesy Carolyn Tabarrok]