OAKVILLE, Ont. — The world of Canadian trucking has always been populated by people of great character and immense resourcefulness, but few — if any — deserve such a description quite as much as Al Pelletier did.

Rising from very humble beginnings in Toronto’s east end, he took a mechanic’s licence and ran with it all the way to the top of Mack Trucks, spending 10 years as president, CEO and chairman of the board in Allentown, Pa. And he did it while being admired and often loved by almost everyone he came in contact with along the way.

Alfred William Pelletier died on Oct. 21, 2008 at the age of 86 after a five-year battle with Alzheimers disease. A funeral service and celebration of his extraordinary life was held before a packed house in Oakville, Ont. last week.

A family man to the end, he was sent off amidst both tears and laughter as his son and two daughters and some of their mates, joined by long-time friends, presented a tribute to an inspiring man in tales and photographs and a short video of Al the cowboy-song crooner.

Al Pelletier in Toronto, at the launch of
Today’s Trucking magazine over 20 years ago.

Al’s rich life began in Toronto on Jan. 22, 1922, as the son of a French Canadian from New Brunswick and his British war bride. His father died not long afterwards, of wounds suffered in World War One, but Al persevered through poverty and left Danforth Technical School to become an apprentice mechanic with the Toronto Transit Commission in 1939.

By 1941 he had volunteered for service in the Royal Canadian Navy, ending his World War Two experience in 1945 as Chief Petty Officer. Three of those war years were spent in convoy service with the H.M.C.S. Granby on the dangerous North Atlantic. At the end of hostilities he returned to the Toronto Transit Commission as a journeyman mechanic.

Pelletier’s long career with Mack began in 1952 when he became shop foreman at the company’s Toronto branch. By 1960 he was national service manager, followed by several progressively larger management roles that culminated in his being named president of Mack Canada in 1974.

Not two years later he was named president of Mack Trucks in Allentown, quickly followed by the additional titles of chief executive officer and chairman of the board. In December of 1985, at the age of 64, he retired from Mack after an illustrious career that included a major expansion of the Canadian operation and record sales on both sides of the border.

But he didn’t retire at all. Always active in volunteer roles with organizations like the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, the United Way, and as president of the Western Highway Institute, for example, he took on a full-time volunteer job after moving back to Toronto with his wife Pat.

Continuing his work with young people, Pelletier became president of Junior Achievement of Canada, a role he held from 1986 to 1990 before retiring more firmly to Naples, Florida. Even there, Al gave his time to Habitat for Humanity, spending every Thursday building homes for needy. The family’s long-standing tradition of summers spent on Lake of Bays in Ontario’s Muskoka district continued to the end.

By any measure, Al Pelletier’s long and productive life was one very well lived.