Respected businessman, community leader Al McNair passes

NEWS/ PASSING — Kamloops and B.C. lost a business giant and respected community leader this week with the passing of Alastair ‘Al’ McNair.

The former B.C. Chamber of Commerce chair, newspaper publisher and public relations consultant died Monday afternoon after a year-long battle with leukemia. He was 71.

McNair lived in Abbotsford in recent years but spent more than 20 years in Kamloops as publisher of The Kamloops Daily News, then as head of the public information department of Weyerhaeuser and later as president of his own company, McNair, Baker, Hurd & Associates, and then McNair & Associates.

He headed up such projects as the Kamloops Art Gallery and the community committee that convinced the B.C. government to turn the University College of the Cariboo into a full-status university, TRU. Before that, during his time as publisher of The Prince George Citizen newspaper, he helped bring the University of Northern B.C. to Prince George.

Prior to being named publisher in Prince George, he was the circulation director at Pacific Press, which published the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province. He served for about a year as publisher both of the Citizen and the Daily News while living in Kamloops, but eventually relinquished the Prince George position so he could spend all his time in Kamloops.

McNair was president of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Downtown Rotary and numerous volunteer organizations, and was named Business Person of the Year by the chamber in 2003. In 2005 he ran for mayor.

Last year, McNair was awarded an Honorary CA designation for his outstanding contributions to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C., in which he’d served as a public representative for 10 years.

“I’ve been very fortunate in life,” he once said in an interview, crediting his success to the support of his family.

His wife Lynne died three years ago. They leave three children and eight grandchildren.