A memorial service is expected to be held in the late spring or early summer of the new year for Ted Allen, who passed away Sept. 9 at age 83.
Longtime readers of Grainews will remember Ted as the last president and chair of United Grain Growers (UGG), a position he held from 1990 until UGG’s merger with Agricore into Agricore United in 2001. He was then named to the same post on AU’s board and remained there until 2003 — after which came AU’s merger with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in 2007, creating what’s now Viterra.
Hailing from a family farm south of Taber, Alta., Ted completed secondary schooling at Upper Canada College in Toronto and a bachelor of economics degree and teaching certificate at the University of Alberta. After a brief spell as a schoolteacher in Banff he returned to take over the family farm and got involved with UGG as a local delegate in the mid-1960s.
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He was elected to UGG’s board of directors in 1973 — two years before the company launched Grainews — and was named UGG’s senior vice-president and CEO in 1989. Under his leadership, farmer-owned UGG went public on equity markets in 1997 and fended off an initial hostile takeover bid by the Alberta and Manitoba pools, which would regroup as Agricore in 1998.
In Ted’s obituary, his friend Larry Weber said Ted “will remain a legend in the grains industry for generations to come.”
