1980s: If You Build It, They Will Come

Expo 86 goes down in history as a model of financial success and puts Vancouver on the map as a modern metropolis. “Mr. Expo,” Jimmy Pattison looks back fondly at the event that would consume most of his waking hours not only for the four months of the 1986 world exposition, but for the years of planning leading up to it.

By BCBusiness / May 8, 2012

Expo 86 goes down in history as a model of financial success and puts Vancouver on the map as a modern metropolis.

“Mr. Expo,” Jimmy Pattison looks back fondly at the event that would consume most of his waking hours not only for the four months of the 1986 world exposition, but for the years of planning leading up to it.

Pattison had chaired the Expo board since 1981. But in 1985, when the board decided CEO Michael Bartlett was not the person to lead the team into the final stretch, “I decided that rather than start over – I’d been with the company since 1981 – I’d take the position myself,” Pattison recalls today.

His legendary decision to take on the job for a nominal salary of $1 a year is testament to Pattison’s dedication to B.C. and to Vancouver, the prairie boy’s adopted hometown.

The fairy-tale image of a prince and princess presiding over the opening of Expo 86 has left an indelible image among Vancouverites of happy times, but for Pattison, the triumphant opening day on May 2, 1986, was only the beginning. “I didn’t feel comfortable until we had achieved what we set out to do,” he recalls; “It wasn’t until around June that I started to enjoy the fair.”

Pattison recalls how the exposition’s happy ending was by no means a foregone conclusion. “You have to put your mind back to the ’80s,” Pattison says. “There was high unemployment, business was off, we were in a recession.”

Never one to claim the limelight, Pattison deflects praise to then-premier Bill Bennett: “He made the decision to go ahead, to gamble a lot of money on something with no guaranteed results. He made a bold move and it turned out.”

Nevertheless, the fair would not be so fondly remembered if it wasn’t for Pattison’s legendary focus on detail. He recalls his 15-hour days: “The most important thing was customer satisfaction. We did 1,000 surveys every day and had them analyzed overnight. I’d come in to work every morning at six and the numbers would be under my door. Were the washrooms clean enough, were the hot dogs hot enough?”

Apparently the hot dogs were indeed hot enough, the restrooms clean enough. Not only would the fair be remembered fondly by its 22 million visitors, but it would go down in history as a model of financial success and it is widely credited with putting Vancouver on the map as a modern metropolis.