Alumnus to preside over Alberta’s premier polytechnic

Photo courtesy of NAIT

Glenn Feltham, Law ’87

Glenn Feltham, Law ’87, Dean of the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, has been appointed President and CEO of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton. Already a notable academic and university administrator, he will take up his new post on March 1 at NAIT, one of Canada’s largest polytechnics.

Taking “great pleasure” in welcoming the new president, James Cumming, Chair of the institute’s Board of Governors, said in a press release, “We are confident that Dr. Feltham will continue NAIT’s tradition of strong and visionary leadership.”

Feltham welcomes the challenge. “NAIT is a leading technical institute that plays a central role in building prosperity in Alberta,” he said in a press release. “NAIT and Alberta share an entrepreneurial spirit. I believe that through embracing this spirit and focusing on the needs of Alberta, NAIT will become recognized as one of the world’s premier technical institutes.”

In a subsequent interview with Queen’s Law, Feltham added that it was during his years at the school that he was helped to recognize and begin developing his particular leadership skills. “Those are the skills I will now have the opportunity to further develop in this role,” he said. Asked about the school’s importance to Alberta, he confirmed his earlier statement: “It’s remarkably relevant, in terms of building wealth in Alberta. I would argue that NAIT is one of the top organizations.”

Feltham’s move to NAIT is something of a homecoming. He began his post-secondary education in his home province with a BA at the University of Alberta. He then studied business at the University of Montana, completing an undergraduate degree and an MBA before coming to Queen’s to study law. “I always believed that law was a valuable foundation,” he says.  “No matter what you choose to do in life, I told myself, a law degree is going to be of tremendous benefit.”

Reflecting on his overall experience at Queen’s Law, Feltham observed that it “helped me in a whole host of ways…essentially providing a broader frame for thinking about the world.” Part of this broadening was meeting other students, “a huge diversity of very intelligent people who very much informed some of my beliefs about the world.”

After articling in Alberta, he completed a doctorate in accounting at the University of Waterloo, specializing in taxation, and began working across Canada as a professor and senior administrator in business schools -- with posts including the Director of Undergraduate Business Programs at Wilfrid Laurier University, the Chuck and Norma Childers’ Chair for Saskatchewan Enterprise and Department Head of Accounting at the University of Saskatchewan, and then the CA Manitoba Chair in Business Leadership at the University of Manitoba and the deanship at Manitoba’s Asper School of Business. He also served a term as President of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association. Each of these steps was creating the career path that led to his present appointment.

While excited about moving on to NAIT, Feltham remains proud of his Law School alma mater. “Queen’s is quite rare in Canada in having a real national presence that affects the practice of law, and drawing students from across this country,” he says. And he has a word or two for the current generation of students there: “An education at Queen’s is transformative; irrespective of where you go in life, it will provide the foundation for success.”