Age: 31
Dave Bulloch’s veins run with the blood of businessmen. It’s a legacy that began with his grandfather. An
immigrant from Latvia with pennies in pocket, Bulloch’s granddaddy built a thriving construction business in Winnipeg. It instilled in his grandson a get-it-done attitude. “Sometimes you’ve got to make big decisions, sometimes you’ve got to mop the floors,” he says.
Bulloch’s insurance broker father also gave him a taste of the corporate life. Tagging along to the office as a kid on weekends, he watched his daddy crunch numbers. “I’d sit there and go, ‘This is cool, this is what I want to do for a living.’ ”
As the vice-president of corporate development at Strategic Group, Bulloch manages the firm’s non-real estate investments, making sure each makes money. That portfolio includes two small to mid-sized businesses that exceed $15 million in annual revenue. “My interest has always been in small companies and how I can help them grow,” he says. One such project is fledgling Shift Networks, a voiceover IP telephone services company. The other is Trendon Bit Service Ltd., which manufactures and sells drill bits for the oilfield service industry.
A strategic problem solver who grew up in Edmonton, Bulloch came to Calgary in 1999. In 2003, he helped start Bright Minds in Business, a networking group for entrepreneurs and professionals under 45 that now has over 250 members. At Bright Minds, Bulloch manages the finances for the group’s annual fundraising events, which bring in prominent Alberta businesspeople as speakers, such as John Torode, CEO of Torode
Realty, and Arlene Dickenson, CEO of Venture Communications. “Everybody I’ve been able to work with inspires me,” he says.
COMMUNITY WORK
Founder, Bright
Minds in Business
Member, West LRT
Citizens Advisory
Committee
PAST
Vice-president,
University of
Lethbridge Alumni
Association
Volunteer, University
of Lethbridge
Mentor’s Program