Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:17 From Engineer to Entrepreneur
05:32 Building Norpack with Purpose
08:22 Leadership, Mentorship & Recognition
18:04 Selling Norpack to Employees
19:45 Faith, Philanthropy & Giving While Living
31:23 Experiencing the NAPA Institute: A Gathering of Faith and Leadership
33:28 Divine Renovation, Live Art, and Catholic Inspiration
35:11 A Mother’s Pride and the Power of Pilgrimage
36:10 The 12-Year Journey of Building St. John Paul II Academy
40:07 Keeping Our Catholic Schools Truly Catholic
43:06 Giving While Living: Finding Purpose Through Philanthropy
48:32 Building a Church in Whistler: Miracles, Gratitude, and Faith in Action
55:21 Trusting the Holy Spirit and Living Your God-Given Gifts
58:21 The True Reward of Giving and Living Generously
1:06:11 Outro
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In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet engages in an inspiring conversation with philanthropist and businessman Andy Szocs, exploring his journey from humble beginnings in northern Manitoba to building and eventually transferring ownership of his successful company to his employees. Andy shares insights on leadership, emphasizing the importance of valuing people, mentoring others, measuring success, and recognizing excellence within an organization. After retiring early, he turned his focus toward faith and philanthropy, founding initiatives in mental health advocacy and Catholic education, and embracing the philosophy of “giving while living.” Through heartfelt stories and practical wisdom, Andy reflects on rediscovering his Catholic faith, the transformative power of generosity, and how intentional leadership and compassion can make a lasting impact on others’ lives.
Transcript:
[00:00:01] Intro: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:25] Troy Van Vliet: Good day everyone and welcome to Catholic Education Matters. So glad to have you all here today and I’m so glad to have with us today’s our guest, Mr. Andy Szocs. Andy, welcome.
[00:00:36] Andy Szocs: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:00:38] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. It’s so great to have you here today. I’m gonna tell Andy’s an incredible philanthropist, incredible business person, and I’ll say this on the record. He’s one of my favorite people. I’ve had the the pleasure of getting to know him over the last while, and it’s been a great journey already.
[00:00:57] And, Andy, I’ve got to say from the people that do know you that I’ve met over the last year or two, great things are said about you. They call you enthusiastic, creative, loyal, strategic, very caring philanthropist. So would you tend to agree with all these descriptions of yourself?
[00:01:23] Andy Szocs: Well, Troy, you’re very kind and I appreciate that as long as you don’t have a list of the things I’m not, okay? There are a few things I’m still working on, but I would like to say that it is an absolute delight to be here. I just enjoy sharing what I have because I know what I have has been given to me by God. And I want to make a difference that is so important to me that I give back to everybody, the church, charities, everything and improve their lives.
[00:02:00] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. That’s great. You have. You have. From your history, from what the little bit of research that I’ve done on you over the last while, you know, just getting to know you.
[00:02:11] You’re you’re a champion. You are an absolute champion. And so many you so many of us, need to emulate you in in the things that you do.
[00:02:23] Andy Szocs: It’s a win win situation. Let me tell you. You see people grow when you talk to them and you’re influencing them. And then inside, I just want to do more. Oh.
[00:02:34] It’s an incredible.
[00:02:35] Troy Van Vliet: Love it. Incredible. So can you tell us a little bit about your background? First of all, I know you’re an engineer by trade. That’s And you also, you established a company, founded a company called NORPAK.
[00:02:50] Andy Szocs: That’s right.
[00:02:51] Troy Van Vliet: Back in the day, which still exists today. Yes. But you’ve since sold it off to the employees that you had at Yeah. The
[00:02:57] Andy Szocs: jump in here and say, number one, I grew up in Flin Flon, Manitoba, way, way up north, 600 miles north of Winnipeg.
[00:03:10] Troy Van Vliet: Oh,
[00:03:11] Andy Szocs: wow. And it was in the boondocks and that’s where my parents went as Hungarian immigrants. And in those days, you basically didn’t pick where you wanted to go. They told you if you wanted to come to Canada, that’s where you would have to. So my father was working in the mine there.
[00:03:27] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:03:27] Andy Szocs: I grew up there and birth Catholic. And it was all about the kids. Okay? What are we gonna do with these kids? Raise these kids because they are our future.
[00:03:39] And I cannot overemphasize the wonderful attitude that those immigrants had.
[00:03:45] Troy Van Vliet: You have siblings too, right? Sorry to interrupt.
[00:03:47] Andy Szocs: Have siblings? Had a brother and a sister, younger brother, younger sister. My mother was so delighted with me, I guess, and she said, I need a couple more. Anyway, I paid my way through university. I graduated in engineering.
[00:04:06] Frankly, I wasn’t a very good engineer, but I figured out pretty quick that, you know, I had people skills and I could put four or five words together and most engineers could only put two. And so that would put me at an advantage. I graduated, I got a job in and not in sales, but then I looked for a job in sales and I joined a company called Fisher Controls.
[00:04:33] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:04:33] Andy Szocs: And I grew fast in that with I loved it. It was great people. And again, this whole thing of sharing, being around people that are performers, and that’s the way to elevate your game.
[00:04:46] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. That’s amazing. So then so when did NORPAK come in?
[00:04:51] Andy Szocs: I I was there for seven or eight years and what they do is they’re a big company. Today, they’re called Emerson and they’re in the billions and billions dollars now. But they distribute their product through representatives. Okay? But that were exclusive.
[00:05:10] And I have after seven or eight years, the people that are exceptional, they give them the opportunity to go out and run their own business completely separate from Fisher, Emerson. And then what you do is you go out there and represent them. And frankly, the more you sell, the more you make, and it’s truly a free enterprise system. Right. And so I was blessed been able to take all those tools I learned at the company, a lot of great ones.
[00:05:42] And then I hired people and frankly, I did extremely well. Mhmm. But also my people did well. I had a philosophy of profit sharing, hiring them right, train them and get out of their way
[00:05:58] Troy Van Vliet: was And my you’ve expressed before that you ran a really tight ship.
[00:06:04] Andy Szocs: Yes. Yes. That’s true. You know, that’s the only way it can work. You know, you have to have people with the same type of attitude.
[00:06:12] And I used to say that, you know, I said, I was not an easy guy to work for if you did not perform because chances are you were in the wrong field. And so I quickly made up my mind as to who would be joining my company. It would be the performers and make a fantastic career for both of us. And so it was like heaven when we got going and everybody performed. We had it was totally on performance.
[00:06:41] Okay. Loyalty, caring, all those other things entered into the equation. But we had to have a bottom line and the more we sold, the more everybody was happy. That’s how I built up my net worth.
[00:06:55] Troy Van Vliet: Wow! That’s great. So, you had NORPAK, you were the sole principal of the company. Yes. And you were that until
[00:07:04] Andy Szocs: Until probably almost about five years before I retired, I realized I was going to retire. I retired at the age of 60 in 1972. And I created a partial type ownership program. And then eventually, I sold the company to all the employees. And incidentally, that’s twenty five years later.
[00:07:25] I retired in the year 2000. It’s hard to believe I’ve been out for twenty five years. And and so those employees bought the company and basically are thriving today.
[00:07:39] Troy Van Vliet: That is awesome. How many employees would have bought the company?
[00:07:42] Andy Szocs: When I left Troy, we had about 50 employees. We had two offices, one in Vancouver and then the other one in Prince George.
[00:07:51] Troy Van Vliet: Right. And they all so all 50 ended up with some form of ownership?
[00:07:56] Andy Szocs: You had to be there for a period of three years. Yep. And then once you got into it, yes. And the ownership was distributed on the role and responsibilities that you had with the company.
[00:08:09] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, wow. So, there was hierarchy I would imagine. Different people got different kinds of shares. Absolutely. Yeah, makes sense.
[00:08:18] Makes
[00:08:18] Andy Szocs: great You to know, I’d like to stop just one second and give you some If I would say the take homes that I would like to share with everybody else is that number one, people are your number one asset. There is no question that that is your most valuable asset and they come first. Once you do that and then you get into, you hire the best, You look very, very and we would have thirty hour interviews talking to almost everybody in the company Mhmm. So that they would get a full view of what this company was about. What was it like to work for Andy Szocs?
[00:09:00] Okay.
[00:09:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Andy Szocs: And and then we would hire them. The other thing that we did is we we concentrated this is a strategy. Yeah. We concentrated on our performers, not on the people that were non performers because most companies and I was trained this way, grew up in corporate world that basically, let’s try to raise the platform for the lower performers. My philosophy got turned around with a consultant we hired.
[00:09:29] And he told me that, no, spend your time with the performers and you’d be absolutely amazed at what happens with the performers. They just raise their bar way up high. And of course it’s a lot more fun.
[00:09:43] Troy Van Vliet: It’s kind of that eightytwenty rule I suppose. Yeah. Where if you spend 80% of your time with 20% of your key performers, you’re going to blow up.
[00:09:52] Andy Szocs: And I was doing it the other way around and getting frustrated. So, it’s it’s a win win philosophy. Couple of other things I might add was that I always encourage people to have a mentor. I had in my life, I had the three key mentors.
[00:10:08] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:10:08] Andy Szocs: And anybody that’s gonna watch this podcast, would say, especially the youth, get a mentor. They’re out there and trust them. It’s just not your parents because your parents give you excellent feedback and guidance, but it’s always nice to have an external view. And so, I encourage anybody to get Can we
[00:10:31] Troy Van Vliet: ask who your three mentors were?
[00:10:33] Andy Szocs: Yeah. One was a guy that hired me. It was Don Estill. He was the general manager and he was one of my mentors. Another was a very religious fellow called George Hardy who was in Vancouver.
[00:10:46] Non Catholic, but he was a devout Christian and he and quite the person and he influenced my faith. And And frankly, I was part time Catholic for maybe quite a bit of my life when I was searching for business success, etcetera. And I think I had this agreement with God that I would take a part time job or whatever or get away from give me some time to straighten this thing out. And I did do that. And that’s when I ended up with finding out that God had rewarded me substantially more than I ever thought.
[00:11:25] And now it was time to do something different.
[00:11:28] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. And your third mentor?
[00:11:30] Andy Szocs: Just so that because My third mentor was George Hardy, a guy by the name of Ben Rector, who was the vice president of sales, who was just the greatest salesman I could think of outgoing dynamic. And I got some of that stuff rubbed off on me too.
[00:11:46] Troy Van Vliet: So, you had sort of like a business leader and then you had kind of a spiritual leader and then you had like a sales leader that And called it
[00:11:57] Andy Szocs: they made a big difference in my life.
[00:12:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, we all need that. All need that. Definitely. And I had getting back to saying hiring great people. A good friend of mine who has a very large successful company and asking him, you know, what he credits his success to.
[00:12:19] And he says, well, the best thing I can do as a leader, he says, is I try to hire people that are much smarter than me. I
[00:12:27] Andy Szocs: did that a lot. Yeah.
[00:12:29] Troy Van Vliet: And it’s true. It’s very true.
[00:12:31] Andy Szocs: Well, we all have specialties. You’re good at something and this and this and the ability to recognize that you’re not always good at everything. Well, that’s where those other people come into play. And recognizing that, it becomes your strength.
[00:12:44] Troy Van Vliet: I’m not good at this, so I need to plug that gap with somebody that’s very qualified.
[00:12:50] Andy Szocs: And it’s strategic. You really have to measure it, see it. And that’s another thing. Measurement became a very important part in our company. If it moved, we measured it.
[00:13:04] And things like we would measure, we would measure how quickly did we get back to the customer, how many times did we screw up, okay, how many complaints, we would measure complaints. We measured the amount of recognition we gave to each other internally. Wow. And we had all these measurements that were developed within the company by hiring a consultant. We probably had about 15 measurements that were spread throughout the company and everybody knew about them.
[00:13:36] And we we took pride in those measurements and we actually graphed them in gold framed stats, graphs throughout the company. And so everybody was fully aware that we were doing all this measurement. And one of the key ones was recognition. Okay. We were a company that recognized our employees just to the nth degree.
[00:14:03] I read a study long ago that said your employees will work harder for recognition than they will for money.
[00:14:13] Troy Van Vliet: To know that they’re appreciated, to know that they are truly appreciated, you know, not by just saying, Hey, great job Andy and then move on. No, it’s actually sitting down with them and truly recognizing them and then recognizing them in front of the whole organization. And you
[00:14:27] Andy Szocs: know what the key is to that is accept that strategy and then measure it. That’s the accountability factor. And I’ll give you an example. We had a corny little thing called recognizing each other. And so this came out of our study group is that we put a huge basket of candies, chocolate bars, etcetera, in the center of the office and everybody saw them.
[00:14:57] And then in there was a form that you would fill out and giving recognition to somebody that worked in the company that helped you out. So this form was, you know, about, let’s say, you fill it out quickly and it says, I, Joe Smith, would like to recognize Tom Brown Yeah. For the things they did. It could be helping me out with a customer. Oh, wow.
[00:15:22] Give me some guidance doing this, etcetera, etcetera. And then what you do is you take that form, and this was intercompany. Yeah. You would take that form and go over and grab what you thought was his treat or hers Yep. And give it to them and look them in the eye and say, I really appreciate.
[00:15:41] Wow. And, you know, it sounds corny. No. Matter of fact, I tell you what, one of our burly engineers says, that’ll be the day I’m gonna be handing out chocolate bars. And the beauty of that story is is that when he got his first chocolate bar from one of the secretarial administrative person, he almost cried.
[00:16:02] It shows you the depth. And then we measured those. We passed out in a year. We averaged 60 chocolate bars a month with the certificates. We measured them and and this was known throughout the whole company.
[00:16:16] So I’m telling you about it was strategic. I could go on and on about other things, but That is gold. Yeah.
[00:16:22] Troy Van Vliet: Was absolutely golden.
[00:16:24] Andy Szocs: And people would saw it. And the other one we had was called SPR, spontaneous recognition. Okay? And this was when I would be able to recognize anybody Yep. For something.
[00:16:41] Okay? And I remember one time through our company, we had a lot of company meetings. I stepped up our meetings by a bunch. The consultant told me about all these things, I said, Okay, let’s implement that. So, we basically had all these recognitions.
[00:17:03] So, for a spontaneous one, I would pick out somebody and say, I’m sending he and his wife to Australia. Now that’s a pretty thing. And now a lot of people would say, well, that’s not fair because
[00:17:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Andy Szocs: Why did you pick him? Yeah. Well, I picked him because it was very obvious not only to me, but to if I put a survey out in the company, that person would have been the person. But things like that was just and I take all of the secretaries of administrative people. I use the word secretary because that’s old fashioned.
[00:17:37] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. That’s old school. Love it
[00:17:38] Andy Szocs: though. Shows my age. Okay? But they admit people, take them out for lunch. That’s just Yeah.
[00:17:46] We did all sorts of things to keep that recognition. I’m gonna come back to that because I do that now in my fundraising and my donor recognition.
[00:17:56] Troy Van Vliet: Alright. That’s great. Wow, so you have this successful company and you’ve passed it on to your employees, which is hugely noble. You didn’t just sell it out to somebody else coming in just taking over the company and then you just, you know, brush your hands and move on and say sink or swim. You actually gave it back, you sold it back to those who had invested all of their time and energy into it, which is hugely noble and the right thing to do.
[00:18:29] And now, so you’re financially set and you’re starting a new chapter in your life, let’s call it for lack of a better expression. And where did that take you? You had spiritual, you know, you said you were kind of a part time Catholic at the time and then things evolved. Where did that go?
[00:18:49] Andy Szocs: Well, that’s interesting because you know, when I said I was gonna retire, reason I retired so early is I said, you know, there’s more to life than just putting trophies on the shelf. And I had plenty, okay? I had more than I needed for money and I came to realization. So, just, I don’t know. I think the holy spirit just said something.
[00:19:11] I think it’s time to move on. So, I moved on and the first thing that came was there was a sad suicide, a depression right across the fairway up at Nicholas on the golf course there.
[00:19:32] Troy Van Vliet: So, this is a neighbor of yours in Whistler. Yeah. And
[00:19:38] Andy Szocs: his son committed suicide very unexpectedly. He’s a 16 year old kid. He had all the toolbox, And they got the call that your son has committed suicide and they didn’t know what to do. And so, they reached out to me and I’m about six months into retirement. My wife and I were doing a lot of travelling and I just said, You know what?
[00:20:02] Nobody is doing much about mental health. This is twenty five years ago. And I said, You know what? I love the leverage. Every pound of effort I put into this I would get big returns because people were covered in heart and cancer, all these other things, but nobody was doing mental health.
[00:20:26] So, I joined that organization. I became the strategist and the visionary and everything like this. It’s called the Cal T. Patrick Dennehy Foundation. And we became probably the most prominent private charity in mental health in BC.
[00:20:45] And so we raised big bucks, not big bucks per se, but for that type of activity. And that’s how I got started in charity. And along with that same thinking, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit said to me, you know, you’ve got all this money. Maybe you should start giving it away. And then I bumped into another person that said Why don’t you try giving while living?
[00:21:15] So, I started giving Giving like while living as opposed to As opposed to leaving it in the will. You’ve seen the movies, okay, where everybody’s in the families gathered one side the lawyers and the other side. Here we would like to read Charlie’s will, etcetera, etcetera. Very somber and everything. It didn’t seem to me like that was what I wanted to do.
[00:21:38] I said, You know what? I am the patriarch of our family. I know all about how to give, etc. So, I said, I’m gonna start on a journey of giving substantially before my life ends. I’m gonna be able to set up a foundation and give a large percentage.
[00:21:59] It has two factors. Number one, I’m able to pick the charities I want. And not want but are deserving. And I made my money through a lot of hard work and a lot of effort by a lot of people. And I wanted to give my money away to people that were gonna be producing results.
[00:22:22] And frankly, you know, all charities aren’t exactly got they’ve got tremendous heart to them, tremendous, outstanding. But sometimes they just don’t have the business acumen because frankly a lot of people that are successful don’t give time, they give money. So, I was one of these guys who gave them time and that worked out extremely well.
[00:22:50] Troy Van Vliet: So, do you look at a charity or another foundation? How do you analyze? Like you said, everybody’s got their heart in the right place. Not everybody’s got the business acumen when they’re part of a charitable organization. So how discern do with what groups you’d want
[00:23:13] Andy Szocs: to Well, it’s not as if you start analyzing, which I do, as a matter of fact. I’ve got a chart where I give right now to 35 charities. So, the first grouping is which area do you want to give into? So, I’ve been to the Catholic church, it’s prominent. Mental health, hospitals, I do work in Africa, okay. I do work with education, universities, scholarships, etc.
[00:23:47] So, all of that and then you start picking out the ones that are stars and a lot of them could be very start up ones. Like one for example I’m involved with is Sanctuary which is a faith based solution to mental health, depression. In Vancouver it’s got 60 people or thereabouts. And what they do is they bring in faith as the answer to issues like mental health and depression. So it’s not as complicated as when you start going to strategic and measuring it, it all falls into place.
[00:24:28] And I’ve got this chart that let me tell you, it’s like a war room when you look at all the data and the inputs I’m trying to balance out.
[00:24:37] Troy Van Vliet: So, you like to know how your gift is going to be utilized, right? I would imagine you want to make sure it’s not getting wasted on crazy overhead or things like that. You want to know that it’s actually being really effective, I’m assuming. Is
[00:24:55] Andy Szocs: that correct? Yes. Oh, yeah. And you know, I spend time with them. And most of the charities I’ve put in I just don’t write a check.
[00:25:05] I probably get involved. I wanna know, let me see their annual reports. Let me talk to their leaders. And sometimes I choose charities that I see a lot of potential, a lot of need, but they need this business acumen. And I’m, frankly, I’m pretty proud that I was able to, you know, basically really help some of those individuals coach them, be a mentor.
[00:25:30] That philosophy that I have embedded in me that, hey, this is really great stuff.
[00:25:36] Troy Van Vliet: You’re giving back in such a magnificent way Andy and thank you for that. I’ll give you the thanks that you deserve right now because so many people that I continue to meet and when they hear about you, including Clay, the guy that’s doing our filming and editing and I was saying how well do you know Andy before you got here today? And he’s like: Well, basically put me through school. He paid for me to go to the Augustine Institute. There was two, I think, that you had given scholarships He’s got his Master’s in theology now and he’s so grateful.
[00:26:10] He’s so grateful and you just made a massive difference in somebody’s life which is incredible. And Clay,
[00:26:18] Andy Szocs: all I said was I’m going to sign up for two scholarships. Brett Powell convinced me and I said this is a good deal. And you need also the feedback. Clay then gave me the feedback. This is what it did for my life.
[00:26:35] I mean, it just feeds so beautifully on
[00:26:38] Troy Van Vliet: It fills your heart, doesn’t it?
[00:26:39] Andy Szocs: Oh yeah, yeah. So beautiful to be able to do that and do it over and over again.
[00:26:46] Troy Van Vliet: Can we go back to you as a part time Catholic, let’s say, and your kind of your reversion back to your faith in deeper sense. And you had a mentor in that as well in the Catholic community. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey and from then into where you are right now?
[00:27:10] Andy Szocs: Well, sure. Well, I had a family. I had two boys, they were adopted and we have five grandkids now, I’d probably say. And so, that kept me busy. We were at church regularly but not full regularly.
[00:27:30] So, then I always knew I was gonna come back to the Catholic church. Was an altar boy and everything. But one of the things that held me back was at that time, it’s not too unusual with people that in my age group or even less that the Catholic church was not exactly inviting the love message of God and the power and forgiveness and the total love. What I heard a lot of was, if you don’t behave, God, etcetera. And that became a profound message.
[00:28:04] And so, the love of God wasn’t nearly attractive. And so, I would say and then being busy in my business and doing other things, charity wasn’t there as much, concentrating on family. And then when I retired, says, you know, okay, now I don’t think I was really talking to Holy Spirit, but he must have been there because you know what? If I go to The Holy Land, I’ll bet you that there’ll be a bolt, a thunderbolt
[00:28:38] Troy Van Vliet: or lightning and
[00:28:40] Andy Szocs: I go see the tomb of Jesus and all these things. So I looked around for two years to find the Holy Land trip. And I found a Holy Land trip through the Napa Institute, a fellow by the name of Tim Bush. And he was going with a high end trip. Was very, and we had Tim Gray who’s quite renowned, was our he was our scholastic evangelist aboard.
[00:29:10] And we went to the Holy Land for ten days and it was unbelievable. And it started to reinforce the journey. And from then on, I just started getting more involved. And I’d have to give a lot of credit to the Americans. I have I’m blessed, very blessed.
[00:29:30] I have must not winter home, guess in Maui and I go there and I’ve met a lot of Americans. From my perspective, they are the most generous nation. It’s unbelievable. Per population, they give more than any other countries. And we see, sometimes we only see the wrong side of them and we all have that type of thing.
[00:29:56] But they are very generous, very philanthropic, just tremendous people. And so, they influenced me as well. So, on that journey, I started adding that to my willingness to get involved with the mental health Kelsey Foundation, all of that started and then it just went on and on. I’m involved with in The US, I was on the board of Augustine Institute which is a very pronounced media based out of St. Louis now they were in Denver.
[00:30:33] I’m on the Nap Institute, the Catholic University. I just have and I meet a lot of very very influential people. And not only influential, they do things, they get things accomplished and I just took you on one of those trips here a couple of months ago. We went to the NAPA Institute and you tell our audience what you thought of it.
[00:31:04] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, well, the NAPA Institute is a phenomenal organization, but a phenomenal event to attend. To go to a group don’t know how many people were there. Was there 500 or a thousand?
[00:31:18] Andy Szocs: Six don’t 50.
[00:31:20] Troy Van Vliet: six fifty. There you go. And from all parts of, well, the world, mostly North America. And I know you’re really trying to champion getting a bigger part of Canada to go to the Navin Institute and to belong to it. But to have all of these like minded Catholics in one place, and these are Catholics that are all championing different initiatives within the faith, within the church.
[00:31:48] And to hear everybody’s story, you know, because there’s so many times to meet and mingle and it’s encouraged to hear these different organizations, whether it’s a university, a Catholic university or college, or whether it’s a pro life organization or an organization that is promoting a different scoring system outside of the SATs, you know, that’s more faith based and not secular. For us, I mean, we’re a newly established Catholic high school and there was other Catholic high schools there being represented as well and sharing ideas. Just to see it as a whole movement, a collection of a whole society that’s moving in the right direction is really uplifting and encouraging. You know, that we’re all going in the same direction, we’re all of the faith. Yeah, it was just incredible and experiencing Mass there, several Masses there because it’s continuous.
[00:32:59] Like a 100. Like a 100. And the different speakers, of course, which is the major part of it. Having all the different speakers, once again, I got to listen to many people that are a lot smarter than me, which is great. That’s not hard to do either, but it’s great to be a part of that.
[00:33:18] So to go and experience the NAPA, even if it’s something that you can only do once in your lifetime, it’s amazing to experience that. So, divine renovation, seeing Father Mallon there and Father Justin, who’s implementing a divine renovation in his parish, having those different discussions. Tim Schmaltz, the sculptor who was on our podcast already. And then he was there actually sculpting live with these incredible sculptures, like just incredible. It was absolutely incredible.
[00:33:52] So, a wonderful organization and I tip my hat to Tim Bush, who’s a huge, not just an incredible business person, but he is also a huge philanthropist and a visionary. And so being able to have met him granted very briefly, but it was all very much a privilege. And thank you to you again for putting it together and encouraging all of
[00:34:17] Andy Szocs: us to go. Troy, I’m so proud that I put all that effort and I had fantastic help from Silveria who works very hard and just night and day for JP too. And so she helped me organize it. And we took about 15 of us Canadians were there and every one of them had enthusiastic over the top feedback stories like you have. And so I am just I must say that your mother came along and that was just shining light for me and for you and for her.
[00:34:52] Was just Yeah. It doesn’t get any better than that. And so I’ve been five times and I’m gonna go for another five or whatever. Yeah. So
[00:35:00] Troy Van Vliet: it’s quite the place to be. My mom, I think she said, this is the best trip I’ve been on in my life. And I was taken back to hear her say my mom’s traveled a lot. She’s got, you know, with my late father, they traveled a lot. And for her to say and, you know, to Midjogori and to The Holy Land, like all over the place they’ve done.
[00:35:19] And for her to say that was actually really quite amazing.
[00:35:22] Andy Szocs: Well, this is the time to say, your mom and I had some pretty nice talks, okay? And she said one of the thrills of this was she was so proud that when she was there she could see her son Troy in action and doing things and interfacing with all these people and his thirst for knowledge and the way he handled himself. So does it get any better
[00:35:46] Troy Van Vliet: than that? No. No. Absolutely not. Absolutely.
[00:35:49] It’s a trip of a lifetime for me too. I’ll remember forever.
[00:35:52] Andy Szocs: Speaking of JP too, I was out there last Sunday and it was oh my gosh, you’ve done an amazing job. You and the team that have put this thing together. I know it’s been a journey for about twelve years. Yeah. It is starting to it is really starting to get together.
[00:36:10] Yeah. And so I would like to congratulate and the things I saw there, I saw something that was it seemed like you thought of everything. The parking, the chapel, the flooring, the basketball, the field, everything. And it’s just a huge project.
[00:36:31] Troy Van Vliet: And
[00:36:33] Andy Szocs: is so needed in our world today and the culture that you’re teaching them, you know, let’s call it the anti woke issues that are out there and parents are worried and even scared of how they they want a safe place. Well, congratulations. And I can say I’m proud to be a major donor to your facility there.
[00:37:00] Troy Van Vliet: And thank you for that. First of all, thanks for the kind words on that Andy, because yes, it has been a long journey. That project is of twelve years, you know, and I’ve said it many a times that, you know, you kind of start a project like this unknowingly for selfish reasons, because, you know, I wanted a place for my kids to go to school, to high school, and I wanted to continue that legacy from Star of the Sea School, which is incredible Catholic elementary school in Silsbury. But that changes really quick with your right mindset. You realize that, you know what, there’s going be tens of thousands of kids that benefit and go through this.
[00:37:37] If we do this right and we keep our eyes on the horizon, because it’s easy to get muddled up in today’s tasks and it can almost be debilitating at times where you’re just like, you know, battle after battle and struggle after struggle after struggle. And there’s no manual for a parent led community on how to start a new Catholic high school. There’s no manual. There’s no learning. You can’t go to 15 different groups and say, Hey, how did you guys do it?
[00:38:05] Or how did you guys do it? Because we set a whole new course on how this gets done. And of course without the support of the Vancouver Archdiocese, we wouldn’t have been able to do it. But we had to show the archdiocese that we can do this. You know, this is a different model, we can do it.
[00:38:26] Some of the things we changed, it was going to be a smaller school to begin with. And then we did the math, we did the numbers, we did the research and we said, wait a minute, with the growth in Surrey with 85,000 kids K to twelve and four hundred portables just in the secular high schools and the public high schools, we’re gonna be full so fast and then we’re gonna be wishing we had built something bigger. So we went from a 300 to 500 size school originally that we’re imagining to now maximizing at 900 when we’re full. Just to try and keep our eyes on the right. So I mean we shifted and then we thought we wanted to try and keep costs down as low as possible, but then we also thought it’s never going to be a less expensive time to build than right now.
[00:39:14] Because five years from now, it’s going be that much more expensive. Another five years from now, it’s going be that much more expensive. So, also architecture. We focused on something that not just now, but over the next twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred years that this is gonna be an incredible campus to go to because it’ll be so well designed. So, we spent a lot of time and effort on that and that’s more of the big vision.
[00:39:38] And then the number one thing that we realized in the midst of all of this is the challenge going forward is how do we keep our Catholic school Catholic? Well, how do we keep it? Because there’s going to be so many people from different organizations or different, backgrounds, different faith backgrounds that are going come in here. And we want the greater community to be part of our community. We don’t want it to dilute our community.
[00:40:06] We want to be able to evangelize and turn disciples and scholars out of this school that can go out and make a difference in the world as Catholics, as of the faith, you know, the belief in Jesus Christ as the center of their faith going forward and how the church will be able to support that. So we’ve kept it in the forefront. One of the ways we’ve done it is we’ve got an incredible board in our school. We have two boards, one is the foundation board and the other one is the society board. The society is more, oversees the educational side and the society board is built of strong people of faith as well that are all like minded to help see the vision of the school and our mission of the school.
[00:40:51] So that is extremely important going forward. It’s our goal to not just be another Catholic school, but we want to be the Catholic school, not as a form of being the best. You know, it’s got nothing to do with that. It’s all about setting the stage for other schools to be able to try and emulate what we’re doing right. So,
[00:41:17] Andy Szocs: anyway, that was my little trot
[00:41:18] Troy Van Vliet: on our school. Troy, thank
[00:41:20] Andy Szocs: you for saying that because I can tell you when I first met you and you said you’re building this school out in Surgeon and told me the size and everything. I said to myself, really? But after I spent time with you and then getting the details and everything, it’s an incredible vision, incredible. And anybody who watches this podcast trusts me. I’ve done my homework Uh-huh.
[00:41:46] With Troy and JP two. This is a facility that if you have the money, invest in it. And you want to invest in the Catholic faith and the education of your kids, JP too is an incredible opportunity for you as a donor or other donors to get rewards. I certainly have.
[00:42:09] Troy Van Vliet: Well, you for saying that. And of course, Andy, thank you for your support. And it hasn’t just been financial support. I’ll tell you what it’s been, you’ve shown great leadership. You’ve been a visionary to help out with our school, with our capital campaign, and you’ve given great advice to me.
[00:42:26] You’ve given great advice. You spent so much time with Silberia Rosselli, who’s now our appointed president of the foundation and doing a great job. You’ll never meet somebody that not only has the strongest work ethic, but somebody who’s also deep in her faith. And I’ve witnessed a reversion in Zoria to her faith as well. And she’s there championing that same vision that we have for the school to make sure we keep our Catholic school Catholic and to make sure that that’s always in the forefront.
[00:42:59] Andy Szocs: While we’re on the same subject, let me tell you, this is for anybody that’s struggling in their late, let’s say in their senior years and you’re looking for a career and everything. Yeah. I can tell you I found the career. Uh-huh. My career is giving while living.
[00:43:20] And occupies a lot of my time. I have a full time admin person that I keep busy that is basically doing all the accounting work, the documentation, etcetera. And I do all the thinking and the strategy and the coaching and thing. But this is I couldn’t think of a better career. I could have been golfing or traveling or doing other things.
[00:43:47] But giving back provides such a a beautiful beautiful enrichment in one’s thinking and one’s destiny. So it it really is and I highly recommend anybody who wants to talk to me about the opportunity or how to do this. You do it by, first of all, grabbing onto the idea and then implementing something and I’d like to talk to anybody about that.
[00:44:13] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Can I expand on that for a second? Yes. Because I’m a philanthropist in a different way. Well, not a different way.
[00:44:23] I mean, I give as much as I can give. Of all of the different businesses and things like that that I’ve been involved with over the years, you you have different successes and you have disappointments and successes and you have all these different things and you’re always working, you know, to try and better yourself and to better your company and organizations. The most fulfilling thing that I’ve ever done in my life outside of getting married and having kids, the most fulfilling thing is championing this new Catholic high school, which has been a lot of work, you know, and I’m not saying that to look for a pat on the back or anything like that. It’s been a ton of work over twelve years and it is by far the most fulfilling thing. When I go into the new campus now, actually it even started at our first day in our temporary campus, but when I walk around and I see the kids in uniform in our school, whether they’re in class or whether they’re out in the field utilizing it, or whether they’re in the gym, you know, at a volleyball practice or during gym class or what have you, or whether they’re in the dining hall mingling in lunch, over lunch or during recess or what have you, my heart is full when I see that.
[00:45:42] And there is nothing more fulfilling. And it’s like seeing your kids succeed and your heart is full with that. But when I walk through the school right now, it’s the most satisfying thing. And all I’ve done is give from my heart with it. Of my time, which is, as you said, it’s your most valuable asset.
[00:46:06] Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t get it back again. My resources, and I’m not saying this once again for a pat on the back, I’m just saying because it is the most fulfilling thing in my life. And I’ve got to experience a lot of things. I’ve got to travel a lot all over the world.
[00:46:21] I’ve gotten to experience great business success. And I’m blessed to have my wife and my family, my two girls. And without them, the school wouldn’t have happened at all without that support. And they also saw that vision and participated with it and encouraged it. But it’s the ultimate fulfillment.
[00:46:44] So, I get it when you say you’ve got a new job now, you’ve got a new career and it’s a career in philanthropy and you’re not just writing checks. You’re involved. You’re giving us guidance. You’re giving Silveria, our whole team guidance. And know because I know some of the other organizations that you’re involved with that you’ve been philanthropic with as well.
[00:47:07] I see the guidance that you’re giving them and it’s not just checks. Also, it’s like, look, if we’re gonna do this, how are you gonna make this right? How are you gonna make this succeed? So, I tip my hat to you again and I also share successes in a different way. Absolutely, and
[00:47:26] Andy Szocs: I can see that. And again, the message is I do come across people and say, hey, well, are you doing? Just sitting around in retirement? And I said, no, I’ve just found the perfect career. It couldn’t be better.
[00:47:42] I mean, really, when you give and then you receive, I mean, it’s just, you know, in grade one they tell you it’s better to give than It just takes us a little time to figure that out.
[00:47:55] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. Speaking
[00:47:56] Andy Szocs: of that, the other thing that I’d like to just mention is that on what I had was I’m also involved my most recent it’s probably been my biggest single charitable is I’m heavily involved in Our Lady of the Mountain Wrestler Church, a Catholic church that had basically rather small facility that was looking always to expand and whatever. It took them twenty five years. And so we’ve created a vision there. We’ve been at it for four years, and I’m proud to say that through a lot of effort and a wonderful, very, very capable architect, Oberty and his son, Oberto, and Tomaso have created a beautiful, beautiful tribute to donors and our donors have been not the parish could only support it right from the start. And I was the lead donor as well as probably most of well, a large percentage of the fundraising.
[00:49:16] And I had to basically focus on the people that can give and that outside the parish because we couldn’t accomplish it. 80% of the money came from outside. And father Andrew’s cooperation and leadership, we were able to raise or right now at 6,800,000.0. And we’re gonna open the church. We’re hoping as I speak that it’ll be Christmas where we’ll be able to at least say mass and finish it off.
[00:49:49] So it’s been a proud journey. One of, you know, just tremendous gratification. One of the things what we did do there is we were also very thankful to all our donors. And there’s a message here I would pass along to the charities that I have found that there’s very few of you that are I would consider that are in the sort of top bracket in gratitude and giving and including the Catholic church. I think it’s absolutely essential and there’s a wonderful opportunity for these charities to give more.
[00:50:31] Not give more, give more in gratitude. And that’s writing thank yous, calling, personal calls, all those things. There’s an endless supply of different ideas of how you can And express you’ve done it today to me and during other times. And I think that it is so important and I highly encourage any of the charities out there to do it. And we’re living proof of being able to do that.
[00:51:01] Without all that gratitude ongoing, I don’t think we’d have made it. And the church is a fantastic tribute with all these big wooden beams etcetera etcetera. It’ll be a place for people that not only find powder, will find God.
[00:51:22] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Absolutely. My hats off to you for what you’ve done there for Our Lady of the Mountain. I haven’t been there physically. I’ve seen the drawings and I’ve seen the construction updates that are going on.
[00:51:34] It’s gonna be a beautiful church. Congratulations. And it’s very Whistler esque. Fits right That’s a nice word. Yes, yes.
[00:51:42] So it’s what you would expect when you go to Whistler, like all the post and beam inside is absolutely stunning. But to champion that, you didn’t just write a check. Keep saying that, you know, you led that campaign to raise all of that extra money. You reached outside of your local church. You had to because the local church, the local parish didn’t have the means to do it nor did the parishioners have the means to do it.
[00:52:09] So, you told me about a story where you were out walking the golf course one morning and you ran into a guy, he wasn’t even Catholic. Can you tell us that story?
[00:52:17] Andy Szocs: Oh yeah. It was actually in the evening and it was winter and I walked out there and there’s a fellow walks out and he looks like, you know, oh God, probably I would size him up. He’s from The Middle East and everything like this and well dressed and everything. And we hit it off. And and I didn’t know what etcetera.
[00:52:38] So I did this couple he was a weekend warrior Yeah. There for the weekend. So he came another weekend and I planned to be out there at the same time. I had a goal in mind,
[00:52:49] Troy Van Vliet: okay? And
[00:52:50] Andy Szocs: the third weekend, finally he says, Well, what are you doing? I says, Andy, go for it. And so, I said, Well, I’m a Catholic. And he looked at me and he said, I’m Catholic. Well, my mouth just dropped.
[00:53:02] And I couldn’t believe that, you know, he’s a Catholic and long story, he gave a $100,000 to the church. And so And he’s not even from Whistler. No, he had a home in Whistler, but yeah, you’re right. We had stories like that. We had 16 people that gave over a $100,000.
[00:53:23] And again, all of you that gave to the church, I thank you very much and it it it really is well worthwhile. And I would say that, you know, it wasn’t all, you know, it’s a journey. And one of the big journeys and I could pass this along is that lots of times when I would be, you know, let’s say it didn’t work out like I wanted it to, not optimized. So what happened was that I’d go to see father Andrew and he says, Oh, well, we’ll just get another miracle, pray more, pray more. And you know, after he said this a few times and I’m putting all this effort into it, etcetera, etcetera, including prayer.
[00:54:04] I was really troubled with it. Maybe the overemphasis on another miracle, pray from And I found in the Bible a scripture that I think really applies to any endeavor like this. Pray like everything comes from God, act like it comes from you. Like everything comes from God, act like it depends on you. And it’s a beautiful two headed coin that both have to get together and that’s what I practice.
[00:54:37] Another story I will tell you is the holy spirit is I became closer to the holy spirit through father Andrew. Father Andrew told me a lot about the holy spirit Ben. And and I said, he definitely influenced me. So I thought, well, know, the holy spirit. So I started praying to the holy spirit.
[00:54:53] And then I got into a session where at nighttime, I think this happened maybe one or two years ago, I I’d be wrestled with all these problems. I’ve got this problem, this problem. What am I gonna do? It’s such and finally, got to the point I said, you know what? I’m just gonna throw those problems away, put them on the table here.
[00:55:12] And when I wake up in the morning, holy spirit, I want some answers. And believe it or not, it started with one, then two, and then three. I knew that I wasn’t good enough for that answer that I received in the morning. It was beyond what I would normally approach. So, the Holy Spirit is definitely there and was definitely there for us to be able to accomplish what
[00:55:40] Troy Van Vliet: we did. Yeah. Well, just finished this, doing the surrender novena, which is
[00:55:47] Andy Szocs: a
[00:55:47] Troy Van Vliet: challenging thing to do. It’s basically, you’re putting everything on the table saying, Jesus, I surrender to you, take care of everything. And that’s a tough one, especially if you’re a control freak. That’s a tough one to do. But however, it is so liberating when you do that.
[00:56:16] And like you just said, your troubles all of sudden, it’s just like, okay, I can’t do this on my own. So here you go, lead me where you need me. And I’m just gonna, I’m putting my head down and just gonna keep working. But my trust is in you. I’m not gonna sit here and get anxiety over it because that’s not gonna help anything.
[00:56:32] I’m not gonna worry myself to death literally because that’s not gonna help anything. I’m just going to keep going, you know, try and do it with a smile on my face and encourage others. And that in itself is journey just to go through that and be reminded every day that not up to you. It’s never been up to you.
[00:56:52] Andy Szocs: And you know, Troy, the other thing I’d like to layer on top is that, you know, God, I don’t know how he does it, but he gives gifts to everybody in some form or other. And he has given me certain gifts that I don’t know where they came from or why. My mother was very caring, DNA, I don’t know. But he’s given me these gifts and he expects me to use them. He didn’t give them to me just like He did all sorts of gifts whether it’s in music, art, business, etc.
[00:57:27] He expects us to use these things and so therefore it’s just beautiful. You pray to God that thank you for everything and also at the same time he says, God, I’m going to live up to your expectations to the best of my ability with your help.
[00:57:45] Troy Van Vliet: That’s those talents. You can’t just take your talents and bury them, right? That’s biblical as well. You got to utilize them. You got to get out there and maximize them.
[00:57:54] Andy, do you have any other words of encouragement or wisdom for philanthropists or to be philanthropists out there right now that might be watching this. Any words of encouragement? Any words of wisdom that you can say, Hey, look, philanthropy is this? I think I’ve said it
[00:58:16] Andy Szocs: so many times in this interview. I think that it’s a perfect career. I mean, golf isn’t a perfect career, etcetera. I use that somewhat facetiously. But basically, I encourage everybody to get the same fulfillment and enrichment that I have had.
[00:58:38] I mean, it’s just been absolutely wonderful. Get involved. Just not write the check. Okay? Meet the people, see the opportunity, and think about sharing.
[00:58:53] The more involvement you get, the more benefits you’re going to get. It’s pretty simple on that basis. So, see too many people trying to figure out what they want to do with their time. Doesn’t necessarily just have to be philanthropy, it could be in time or whatever. There’s all to sorts of be able to do that.
[00:59:16] Troy Van Vliet: So, for those that maybe aren’t as blessed financially, you just mentioned that, you know, it might be just giving of your time, which is huge. I’m a donor to the school, but I’ve also donated what I believe to be one of most valuable asset is sacrifice of time.
[00:59:34] Andy Szocs: Absolutely.
[00:59:35] Troy Van Vliet: A lot of time. So, I would encourage those that if you don’t have the finances or even if your finances in a scale is, you know, my dad always said, you know, give till it hurts. Know, he always said, then, you know, you’ve because it’s the most fulfilling and satisfying thing when you know, okay, it’s comfortable for me to give this much money or it’s comfortable for me to give this much time. But then ask yourself to give a little more on top of that. And that’s when it really becomes fulfilling because it just, you can see it making so much of a difference.
[01:00:16] Know, our board members for the last we’ve had, we had building committees, we had ad hoc committees in the beginning before we had formal boards, before we were actually, became limited organizations and societies. All these people gave their time and money, but their time, their efforts, their knowledge, hugely fulfilling. Huge. You know, I’ve got
[01:00:46] Andy Szocs: an example of one of those. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the East End Boys and Jimmy Crescendo. Yeah,
[01:00:53] Troy Van Vliet: absolutely.
[01:00:54] Andy Szocs: Jimmy and I became friends and one of the charities I support and I’ve been to his school, talked to his kids and everything. And as soon as I was building the church, Jimmy says, I’m gonna help you out. And so, kids yeah. I said, fine. And so unbeknownst to me what they were gonna do, but they went and raised some money.
[01:01:17] They raised a thousand dollars. And And then Jimmy said, I’d like to come over and see you. And so he came over to me one Saturday morning and he had six kids with him, knocked at my gate and I said, wow. These kids, they were 16 to 18 years old. And he basically gives these kids hope and home and some education to be able to get their life together again.
[01:01:48] And they’re not necessarily from you know, poor areas or just average type of people. Yeah. So these kids stand there and I’m, what? 60. So they’ve come in and write with coffee and some water.
[01:02:06] We spent two hours talking and all those kids just they commented on their life, okay, and everything, and that they were part of this. And it had a profound effect on me. I thought, Oh my gosh! I felt like I got a 100,000 check. These kids because I know that we’re putting them on the right track, getting them into the place that one day they’ll be whatever they do.
[01:02:34] But whatever you do is very important. A matter of fact, for one of the church activists around the groundbreaking ceremony, Jimmy again shows up with six of his kids. Isn’t that so There to witness what was happening with the church. I mean, does it get any better?
[01:02:51] Troy Van Vliet: No. And think of the lessons that these kids are learning with that too in philanthropy. Like no matter what you have, if you’re giving some of it away and it teaches you too that there’s more than enough and that others, no matter how little you have, somebody else has less and you can help, you know, and two of our major, which we’re so proud of, two of our major fundraisers that we do every year within the school through the foundation. Number one, we have the Royals ball. Number two, we have the Royals golf tournament.
[01:03:26] We’ve called it the Alumni Golf Tournament. We don’t have a ton of alumni yet, but those two fundraisers are for our bursary program. And they are for families that need financial aid because we’ve always, we’ve said from day one, we are not going to turn families away for financial reasons. We’re very proud of that. We’re always wanting to give more back than what we receive.
[01:03:51] So, we’ve got a great financial bursary program that that’s true to our heart too and true to the mission of St. John Paul II Academy as well. Andy, any other words of wisdom that you want to share before we wrap it up?
[01:04:04] Andy Szocs: Well, is. I would like to thank you again for allowing me to have platform here, a podium or whatever it is to talk about the things. I am reaching out to all these people about the the wonderful opportunities that we have here. I hope that what I’ve commented on is some of the take homes, I talked about business, when I talked about philanthropy, whether it’s giving or whether it’s as a fundraiser, etcetera. All of this has manifested in some way to make you look at you, the audience, look at opportunities for you.
[01:04:45] Because I can tell you, it’s huge and it’s so rewarding.
[01:04:50] Troy Van Vliet: It’s so rewarding. That is the biggest emphasis is how rewarding it is being able to give back. Annie, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us here today. Thank you for all of your, well, first of all, your kind financial support, but even more so all of your words of wisdom that you’re constantly sharing with us.
[01:05:09] I know you’re in contact with Silvery almost every day helping coach her along, which is just awesome. She’s always elated to hear from you, as am I of course. And we hope to visit you in Whistler soon. We wanna be there for the opening of the church as The
[01:05:24] Andy Szocs: official opening will probably be in May type thing because by the time we get everything going.
[01:05:31] Troy Van Vliet: Yes, exactly. Well, if there’s mass there at Christmas already, I might try and sneak out and get to that before the grand opening. Yeah, for sure. So, thank you very much and so appreciated. You bet.
[01:05:45] Andy Szocs: All right.
[01:05:45] Troy Van Vliet: And I encourage everybody, if you like what you see here, please do like and subscribe, hit your notification bell, all that fun stuff and comments are great. That really, really helps us to get the word out is when you comment, because it boosts us up with the algorithms and let us know if you have any ideas of anybody else that you’d like to see on Catholic Education Matters. That would be absolutely huge. All right. Thank you everybody.
[01:06:10] Have a great day. Thank you for listening to Catholic Education Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast on your favorite listening platform, rate it, and also leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with your friends.
