Philip Sprung
When the engineers at NASA needed a covered parking spot big enough for a space shuttle, they called Calgary. They asked for Philip Sprung.
It was much the same when the cries went out for relief efforts in Rwanda, for food warehousing in the Philippines, for a respite shelter at Ground Zero in New York. The calls would come and Mr. Sprung would answer them. It was how Sprung Instant Structures made its name internationally and how the company's third-generation overseer built a reputation on mixing humanity with business.
It was a legacy not lost on his five children after Mr. Sprung died at his home on March 3 at the age of 83.
"At his funeral we saw that many of dad's life-long friends were business associates," said Philip Sprung Jr., the company's current president. "Most people try to keep those things separate. It's like the old cartoon – 'Morning, Sam, morning, Ralph' – where the sheep dog and coyote punch in for work and it was all business. But after work, they could sit down and be friends."
Philip Davis Sprung was born in Calgary in June 13, 1931, to Dorothy (née Davis) and Donald Sprung. The family business had been founded in 1887 by Philip's grandfather as a tent, awning and mattress-making operation. Rather than join the firm when he came of age, Mr. Sprung enrolled in law school at the University of British Columbia. His studies were cut short in second year, however, when his father asked him to quit school and move back home.
"I think he was happy to leave Vancouver and join the company," his son Phil said. "He didn't like the overcast in Vancouver. He talked about it for the rest of his life."
Working initially in the company's apparel division, Mr. Sprung was full of ideas. In the mid-1950s, he turned a trailer into a travelling showroom and drove it up the Alaska highway selling outerwear and Western shirts. The venture was a huge success.
Mr. Sprung's most important innovation came in 1969, when he designed a fabric structure to cover the swimming pool of one of his employees. Not long after that, when the Calgary Stampede needed strong temporary structures that could withstand the elements, he created some. Soon he found more clients in the oil and gas industry.
"When they [wrote] I Did It My Way, Frank Sinatra was talking about a guy like Phil Sprung," said Mogens Smed, one of the many corporate associates and friends. "Most business people are boring. All they want to talk about is money. Phil would talk about anything but that."
Family members insist Mr. Sprung was far from boring. He had an active mind and constantly asked questions even if he already knew the answer. What he wanted was to hear a response that could lead to a better way of doing things.
"He was a contrarian," Mr. Sprung Jr. said. "If you said, 'That's a big, beautiful sky,' he would say, 'That's not blue.' He loved to challenge conventional thinking."
That led to the production of a patented "tension fabric material" that was strong enough to withstand gale-force winds and bitter winter conditions. Since 1980, Sprung structures have been seen at catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of High River, Alta.
Those who occupied the 31,000-square-foot tent that he provided next to the smouldering remains of the World Trade Center called it the Taj Mahal. For his humanitarian efforts, Mr. Sprung was honoured by the AmeriCares Foundation and was presented with an award from former U.S. president George H. W. Bush.
Assisting NASA was an entirely different venture, one born of prevention. Space agency officials wanted a structure 51 metres long, 76 metres wide and more than 18 metres high. It was to be a place big enough to house a space shuttle so engineers could open the cargo bay doors and work without being watched.
NASA asked companies from around the world to submit their best pitch. The space agency picked Mr. Sprung's.
"Dad was very proud of being asked [to aid NASA]," Mr. Sprung Jr. said. "They wanted a structure that was almost 180-feet wide [with no middle support running floor to ceiling]. They didn't want any Russian eyes to see what was going on."
Not all of his projects worked as planned, though. He designed a hydroponic greenhouse in Calgary that he claimed could produce cucumbers without soil. When the project failed in 1987, it was blamed on where the greenhouse had been built – smack dab on the site of an old oil refinery that was leaking fumes through the soil.
Undaunted, Mr. Sprung took his greenhouse to Newfoundland, where he was welcomed by Premier Brian Peckford. Once again, the project failed, only this time it cost Newfoundland taxpayers close to $20-million. CBC dubbed the calamity "Premier Peckford's pickled palace."
"He was a serial entrepreneur," Mr. Smed said of Mr. Sprung. "Did people call him crazy? That might have been a word that came up a few times. It never bothered him, though."
Mr. Sprung's quirky ways were evident in his personal life, too. He wanted his family to be close, so he purchased a large chunk of land south of Okotoks, Alta., then divvied it up among his children, who all built houses on it.
On his portion, Mr. Sprung had a designer draw up a 12-sided house with 12 vaulted peaks, a lot of windows and a swimming pool.
If that didn't grab a visitor's attention, there were always the 100-plus animals roaming about the fenced-in property.
Mr. Sprung, it seemed, had a Noah complex. At various times, his game preserve was alive with dogs, goats, peacocks, racoons, deer, palomino horses, a half-zebra, half-pony known as a zony, an African water buffalo, more dogs, a pair of Japanese snow monkeys and a moose named Murray, until it gave birth to a calf. Then there was Mary the moose.
There were also two macaque monkeys known as Tarzan and Jane. They lived outside year round. One of their ways to stay warm was to climb onto the back of a horse and snuggle down. One horse was so startled at having a monkey on its back it began bucking, with the now-startled macaque hanging on for its life.
"I could not believe it when I saw that," said Mr. Sprung Jr., who once talked his dad out of buying a giraffe named Fred. "I said, 'How are we going to bring the giraffe home? It won't fit under the highway overpass.'"
In 2001, Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers heard of the exotic animals on the Sprung property and seized many of them. Mr. Sprung was charged with unlawfully possessing wildlife. A judge ruled that the warrants used by wildlife officers were invalid and dismissed the charges. Mr. Sprung then sued the province for precisely $574,178.99.
That story, and others, was retold when family and close friends gathered earlier this month to reflect on the man who provided shelter to those who needed it.
As the funeral procession left the Sprung acreage, there was a moment that surprised those who witnessed it. All the horses that normally galloped around the property in four separate groups had come together on the road leading out to the highway. As the cars approached, the horses slowly moved aside.
"It was as if they were paying tribute," Mr. Sprung Jr. said. "Dad would have loved that."
Philip Sprung leaves his partner, Aline Peterson; five children, Kerri, Dawn, Philip, Tim and Brenda; 11 grandchildren; and his sister, Sharon. He was predeceased by his first wife, Beverly, and second wife, Sylvia.
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