Background
Gouin was born to a Catholic family on February 15, 1916 in Vimy, Alberta, one of seven children of Rudolph and Rose Alma Gouin.
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Jean Gouin
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During World War Two, he joined the Canadian Army and served in Ontario. After the war, he returned to work at his store. He later incorporated his company, North American Road Limited, and seeing that the rapid expansion of farmland in the region would require additional roads to transport all the new crops, expanded the company into road-building.
In the 1960s, they expanded from road-building to industrial work including clearing the site for the Gardiner Dam and Lake Diefenbaker in Southern Saskatchewan and then began providing services for Suncor"s Oil Sands development in the Fort McMurray area.
Thereafter, they expanded into mining, pipelines and foundation piles. In 1972, Gouin purchased his brother"s share of the business.
In 2003, the company was sold to a Texas-based international investment group for around Computer-aided Design 405 million. At the time, North American Road Limited had invested heavily in the mining industry incurring high levels of debt when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau implemented the National Energy Program which put a heavy tax burden on energy companies who then pulled back on their capital investments making it difficult for North American Road Limited to meet its debt obligations.
Gouin died on November 11, 2007.
In 2012, Gouin was inducted into the Alberta Business Hall of Fame
Gouin"s creed was: "Be fair, but be firm. And plan the next day.".
