Dan Bannon: Businessman of the Year

Dan Bannon has laid the foundation for hockey in Fort William First Nation in more ways than one.
Bannon recently received the Businessman of the Year award for 2013 from the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund (NADF). He has owned and operated his own business in Fort William, Dan Bannon Contracting, for the past 20 years. With six employees, the company mainly builds houses, but sometimes does commercial renovations or sub-contracts for larger jobs.
Given his extensive support of local youth hockey, it’s fitting that First Nation turned to Bannon when it came time to build its second arena. His crew put the footings in for that facility.
In presenting his award Oct. 17, NADF acknowledged that during Bannon’s years in business he has given back to his community by sponsoring about 200 youth playing hockey at various levels. A fan of the sport and especially the Toronto Maple Leafs, he has done so in the belief that the game helps teach life skills.
Bannon started picking up carpentry skills at an early age. When he was about nine years old his dad passed away but a neighbour became a mentor.
“My cousin and her husband lived a few doors down from me. They were a young couple; they didn’t have a lot of money, so this guy had to fix a lot of stuff. And I was always over there, getting in the way, helping him fix the fence ...” he recalls.
“From that day forward, that’s what I wanted to do.”
Now Bannon is the mentor. Since leaving a job as a police officer behind 20 years ago to become a contractor, he has trained 10 others in the field of construction.
These days he’s not as hands-on with the work as he used to be.
“When we were doing the footings, I was pounding all the stakes while my guys were watching me. One of the other guys came up to me and said ‘Why are you paying guys to watch you work?’
“Ah, why indeed?” he says of his response, then laughs.
“So I don’t do a lot of that any more. They do most of it. I just provide the training and I make sure it’s getting done proper.”
On the night he is recognized as Businessman of the Year, Bannon is asked what he considers his proudest business accomplishment.
“That I’m still around doing what I’m doing – something that you always wanted to do, being your own boss,” he says. “You’re not necessarily making a pile of money. Just staying alive in the business world is a big feat, I find.”
Now a grandfather of five, Bannon also remembers where it all started, as a little boy hanging around construction sites in Fort William.
“I used to go watch the guys build houses and sometimes they’d give me the money to go buy pop. Sometimes I came back, sometimes I didn’t,” he says with another laugh.