CEO of the Year 2010

There’s a common adage that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and that a heavy work load keeps you out of trouble. Whether that was Eugene’s motivation or not is impossible to discern (he passed away in 1991), but one thing is certain: he made sure Frank was rarely unoccupied. In addition to pushing him to excel in school and public speaking (Frank won first place every year), Eugene had no problem finding jobs for his son, along with Frank’s brothers and cousins, in the family business. No task was beneath them. From stocking shelves to bagging groceries to prepping produce, the Coleman kids were expected to do it all. In Frank’s opinion, sweeping the dark, dusty warehouse was the worst chore imaginable.

That is, until his father put him and his cousin Mike on the sales floor in the furniture department wearing pink shirts with matching ties, beige twill pants and seeksucker jackets. “He had seen it somewhere,” says Frank. “He said, ‘this is what salesmen should look like’. We looked like two fellows out of a Barnum and Bailey circus. That was the year I enjoyed the warehouse.”

Not all of Frank’s part-time employment was in the family business, however. He also spent one summer selling newspaper subscriptions, and another two in the Corner Brook economic development office. “And then I set up a little business of my own. I was selling advertising for a project that I thought I could do, and I did that for a summer.”

The casual jobs, however, were mere interludes punctuating the really serious work of higher education. Though Frank was a diligent student, earning a B.A. from St. Francis Xavier and a Master of Economics degree at Dalhousie, one of his most memorable lessons was again delivered by family.

“I was at university, and I phoned my father and said I needed some money. ‘Okay’, he said, and he sent me $100. I phoned him back and I said, “$100? That’s not enough. That’s chicken feed.’ And he says, ‘Oh, is that right? I’ll look after that.’ Four or five days later, an envelope shows up and there’s something in it and it shook. I opened it up and there was this little note. And the note said: ‘This is chicken feed. That was money.’ I never forgot that.”

Coming of age

In the final months before his graduation from Dalhousie, Frank was introduced to Yvonne Hennebury, an attractive St. John’s native and nurse. That same night, he wrote a note to himself that this was the girl he wanted to marry. She, however, wasn’t equally impressed by the introverted student. Yvonne reportedly could have had her choice of suitors, but she was more interested in building her career and doing missionary work overseas. Fortunately for Frank, Yvonne’s sister had taken a liking to him and quietly encouraged the subject of his admiration to give him a second look, all the while encouraging Frank not to pursue Yvonne too aggressively. The strategy worked. Yvonne soon liked him enough to warn off a potential rival by describing the unsuspecting Frank as “a nerd”. Six months after they first met, Frank proposed. Before another six months had passed, they were married.

Frank’s first career opportunity was as a senior economist with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, but he was living in Halifax at the time and didn’t have the money to fly to St. John’s on the premise of an interview that might not pan out. “I wouldn’t ask my father for it,” he says, remembering the chicken feed. Instead, he approached what was then the Unemployment office and asked them for the money. The funds were provided following verification that there was an actual interview pending, a proceeding which impressed the future boss and secured Frank the job.

Yvonne, meanwhile, tried to continue her nursing career, but she and Frank had both agreed they wanted a large family and she eventually had to give up nursing. “When we had two children, it was too hard to keep up,” she says. “I agreed to say home with the children.”

Towards the end of his seventh year with Hydro, Frank needed a new challenge, so he began teaching night classes at Memorial University. “Then I started a company selling satellite dishes, and then I started a consulting company.” With four children at home and Frank working day and night, it wasn’t long before something had to give.