Jack Nellis Turvey was born in Harris, Saskatchewan (near Saskatoon) on February 12, 1911, but subsequently moved to Vancouver where he finished high school and lived with his mother after the death of his father. As a smallish child unwilling to give any quarter, he grew up as something of a fighter, a trait he carried with him throughout his business career, as he frequently scrapped with business and union leaders and politicians in later life, usually trying to preserve or grow one of the many business interests he developed in Western Canada.
He graduated from UBC in 1934 with a BA in economics, but spent most of his early business career working as an accountant, although he never obtained formal training or certification in this area. After working at a number of west coast businesses through the thirties and early forties, he joined Marwell Construction in 1949 which gave him contacts and experience he would draw on for much of his career.
While working for Marwell, he met up with Bill Sharp in 1955 in connection with a cement project being promoted in Regina. Through this experience, he was brought by Sharp to be the first Secretary-Treasurer of IPSCO in 1956 and stayed with that Company for much of the rest of his career, retiring as Chairman of the Corporation in 1981. As IPSCO's leader through many early difficult years, he made a major contribution to the eventual success of that Company and is best known in Canadian business history in this regard.
However, in addition to his career at IPSCO, Turvey also contributed greatly to the development of industry in Western Canada through his ownership of such enterprises as Western Construction (a significant construction company with several large projects to its credit), Estevan Brick (a major manufacturer of brick in the prairie provinces) and Pe Ben Industries Ltd (which became another successful public company specializing in pipeline construction and northern transportation). He eventually retired to Vancouver, where he died on July 17, 1990.
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