Brian Crombie: Mississauga’s Voice of Experience

Sauga960AM’s host of the nightly 6 pm Brian Crombie Radio Hour recently sat down with me to talk about his amazing business career, his passion for creating infrastructure and communities that work and the community he calls home – Mississauga.

Praveen Amirtharaj: Brian, you have had an amazing career in business in a variety of industries and roles – senior roles at a professional sports team to high profile entertainment companies to a pharmaceutical company.  Where are you most comfortable?
Brian Crombie:  I enjoy being a radio host. I enjoy doing finance. I enjoy general management. I like negotiation. So I think the simple answer to your question is that I’m a generalist. I’m probably most comfortable in numerous different roles and places. 
 

PA:  You worked for The Walt Disney company?
BC: I was the senior analyst in strategic planning for Disney for three years based in Los Angeles. I did a fair amount of work on Park development but also on the peripheral real estate development around the theme parks. I did a major strategic study for the Walt Disney Company about what to do with 44,000 acres of land Disney owned in Orlando looking at Park, entertainment, retail and Hotel usage. I was part of the group that came up with a concept for Pleasure Island and Downtown Disney. 

PA:  Then you moved on to the pharmaceutical industry ?
BC:  That was about 12 years later. Before that I worked for Molson's, where I was part of the group that did the financing for the new Bell Centre / Molson Centre for the Montreal Canadiens among many other deals. Then I went moved to Vancouver to work for Jim Pattison of the Jim Pattison Group doing fishing, coal, entertainment and grocery deals. After three years there I got called up by recruiter to see if I wanted to meet Eugene Melnyk who was the chairman and CEO of Biovail, a biopharmaceutical company. And so my career sort of went through a couple different paths to get to from Disney to Molson to Pattison to Biovail, where I became the CFO.

PA: More recently, you became Chair of Transit Alliance. Was that driven by personal interest?
BC: I really came to terms with how important infrastructure is when I was with Disney. I did a fascinating analysis that I presented to their Board of Directors about the importance of infrastructure. Infrastructure created a huge amount of value and so I got really excited about what economic generators can do and what infrastructure can do. Former Mississauga Mayor, Hazel McCallion asked me to chair something called the Mississauga City Summit.  I got really excited about infrastructure. And I remember I told my kids one time that my passion was infrastructure. They said “Dad, no one has infrastructure as a passion.” But I think it's the key and it's not just the infrastructure but it's the combination of infrastructure with different generators of economic activity in an agglomeration. 

PA: Recently you surpassed 500 episodes on Sauga960AM on your Brian Crombie Radio Hour. Congratulations. What's your approach with your guests? Why do you think your interviews resonate with listeners? 
BC: I'd like to believe I'm a good interviewer because I do my research ahead of time and I know what people are all about and I believe that I can get them to open up. I also try to be somewhat provocative and provide a counterpoint to what they're saying so that I can get them to talk and argue their point. But at the same time, I try to make them feel comfortable. I try to do politics, business, economics and lifestyle all week. I really try to get interesting business stories on my show. I try to close most of my shows with my own point of view on the topic. Bottom line, I am very curious which I think is my secret. 

PA: Who has left the biggest impression on you and why? 
BC: That's a really difficult question. I’ve talked to a lot of fascinating people.  Hazel McCallion is a fascinating person. Last week I interviewed the former mayor of Toronto, David Crombie who is a legend in local politics. I interviewed Conrad Black on his point of view on Donald Trump. Those have been interesting, really interesting. But I also interviewed people coming up with a new solution for rare diseases, or new technologies to change our lives or new political ideas. People are fascinating and I get to meet them and share my interviews with my audience. What a privilege. 

PA:  Why is Mississauga special to you ?
BC: I think I've lived the life that a lot of people have as the dream, that of owning a single-family home with a great back yard and a pool. I used to live in Toronto for 10 years, and I had a nice house and I loved being able to walk to Bloor Street and go to shops.  But I never could afford a proper house there. Mississauga offers people the opportunity to own a middle class home with access to parks, bike trails and even having a basketball hoop in your driveway.  I think the other thing about Mississauga is, and it’s lost a little bit of this, but we were a collection of communities … people felt an identity to their areas. I think that we've got these communities that you can feel part of and go and have some fun, whether it be restaurants or retail.  There are things that we could and should do with the parks in Mississauga. Could make those areas, if we wanted to, be as important to community as Central Park is to Manhattan or Stanley Park is to Vancouver or Hyde Park is to London.

PA: Who are looking forward to having on your show in 2022? 
BC: I'm looking forward to interviewing some of the leaders of the Provincial parties. I've had a bunch of people on talking about this truck convoy in the last two weeks. I had a panel on about the Tory leadership. I want to have some more people on that. We got a lot happening from a political standpoint. So I think that'll be interesting.

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