Ted Olson 2014. Photo courtesy of Deanna Olson.
Ted Olson was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Raised in Calgary, he went to the University of Alberta and after graduating, his dad told him he had one week to find a job. Olson’s father worked at Squibb and Sons, a pharmaceutical company, as a field manager.
“My dad trained pharmaceutical reps,” says Olson. Hearing Olson’s predicament, a friend of his father asked him why he didn’t just work for his dad.
Knowing his dad would never hire him, Olson wrote to the sales manager at Squibb and Sons. The sales manager asked him why he should hire him. Olson asked him how many years it took him to become the sales manager at Squibb and Sons. The sales manager told him 15 years. “I can cut that into a quarter,” Olson said. The sales manager told him he was hired and to meet him in Winnipeg for an interview.
Olson hopped on the train and went to Winnipeg. He knocked on his dad’s door. “What the hell are you doing here?” his dad asked.
Olson told him he was there for an interview. At the meeting, his dad was there along with a bunch of other businessmen. Olson laughs, saying his dad had to shake his hand and act calm. Clearly, working for the same company was not what Olson’s dad had in mind for him when he told him he had to get a job within a week.
“Afterwards, my dad insisted to the sales manager that I work for him,” says Olson. After much cajoling, Olson was assigned to work for his dad.
“I didn’t call him dad, though. I called him OT.” OT stands for Osborne Theodore and they were initials that Olson and his father both shared. As for himself, he says the only time anyone called him Osborne was when a teacher was getting his attention. Otherwise it was and is strictly Ted.
Olson has been working for 57 years. He drove around selling pharmaceutical drugs to stores in his first job.
“I used to go through a car a year. In those days if you got 50,000 miles on your car, you got rid of it.”
Olson then went on to work for the Bank of Montreal for two to three years and they were sad to see him go.
An avid golfer, he got asked if he wanted to work at a golf course. “I always wanted to work at a golf course,” says Olson.
“I was going to be there for one year and I’ve been there for 16 years,” says Olson, who works at the North View Golf & Country Club. On his first week of work, he got stuck about five times in the soft spots of the rough, where he cuts the grass. His boss joked he couldn’t afford to get a truck to come and pull him out every time he got stuck.
He says some of the highlights of his career have been hosting the PGAs and getting to golf with PGA athletes. They hosted the PGA at the golf course he works at for six years straight. Over the years, he has gotten to know every nook and cranny there is to know at the North View Golf Club. Like the many of the cars he used to go through, he has been through five or six machines at the golf course, from giant sit-down mowers to tractors that tow a mowing device. He has learned a lot about grass and the basics of turf management and has used his knowledge in other areas of his life.
Olson now lawn bowls, a sport similar to bocce ball and curling, played on a turf similar to a putting green. He has used his expertise as a greenskeeper at North View to help out at his local lawn bowling club on its turf management, one time bringing down his boss to check out the grass.
Ted Olson out lawn bowling at the Tsawwassen Lawn Bowling Club. Photos by Pricilla Westlake.
“I like lawn bowling better than golf,” Olson admits. “I am very competitive. There’s no doubt about it.” Golf is more a sport where you play yourself; you try to beat your own score. Lawn bowls is strictly about playing against a competitor. Olson’s wife, Deanna, tells him he is too competitive. The two played a round robin game of bowls, called Australian Pairs, this week, against three other couples and afterwards his wife told him he never smiled.
Although off for the winter months, Olson will be right back to cut the grass at the North View Golf & Country Club in the spring.
rebeccaberry915
I love hearing stories about people’s lives. Where they started and where they ended up. It is always interesting to see the different paths people take and how often those paths were never intended.
Sascia Smith-Jensen
I find this story very interesting in that Olson followed in his fathers footsteps and blazed a new trail for himself, even though its not what his father had in mind for him. He seems like a man who finds something that he wants or enjoys in life and goes for it! This is an inspiring story because it is proof that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it.