When Denis Turcotte resigned as head of Algoma Steel last year, he could have written his ticket into any corner office.
But instead of becoming a corporate turn-around artist with another struggling company, he caught the consulting bug.
He realized he could do more for small, creative thinking companies with cutting edge technologies and for budding entrepreneurs who weren't too proud to ask for help.
Once celebrated in a national business magazine as Canada's best CEO, the 47-year-old Thunder Bay native helped shepherd an industry whipping boy in Sault Ste. Marie's Algoma Steel, fresh out of bankruptcy protection in 2002, into one of North America's most efficient and profitable steel producers.
What has really piqued his interest these days is renewable fuels and its vast potential to rethink how we use the forest.
Turcotte is fascinated by the combination of taking old science and applying with new technologies to change the way we view and use wood fibre.
He's working with Boston-based Mascoma Corp. on their big plans to start a cellulosic ethanol plant in northern Michigan using wood chips. Operating as Frontier Renewable Resources, the company secured $26 million from the U.S. Department of Energy and $23.5 million from the state government toward building the plant just south of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
As a former Tembec vice-president of business development, he's familiar with the chemical process of making pulp.
The front end of Frontier's proposed operation cutting, transporting, debarking, chipping and pulping wood is the same as a conventional operation, until the genetically-modified bacteria are let loose to start producing ethanol.
"It's unbelievable breakthrough technology," said Turcotte. and it represents a glimpse into what Northern Ontario's forestry industry could look like within a decade.
It was his 20 years of forestry background and his experience at Algoma in dealing with financial markets and foreign suitors that's made him an attractive and trusted advisor.
A free and innovative thinker, Turcotte was always open-minded enough at Algoma to consider a strategic joint venture with a Germany wind turbine maker to produce steel towers in the Sault.
In Northern Ontario, he's helping companies like St. Marys Paper and biodiesel producers SITTM Technologies, and even a Sudbury mining supplier, Fuller Industrial, on its expansion plans.
Turcotte loves the opportunity to not only invest in these companies, but also be parachuted into a fast-paced environment where he has learn things on the fly, much like his arrival at Algoma in 2002 as a steel industry outsider.
Acting as a consultant allows him to be very selective in his projects.
"I have the luxury of picking and choosing where to spent my time."
This career path follows a memorable year for Turcotte in 2007 marked by personal tragedy in his family and the ownership changeover from publicly-traded Algoma Steel into a private asset of Mumbai, India's Essar Global in a $1.85 billion deal.
After stepping down from Essar in April 2008, he took the spring and summer to re-connect with his family at their North Channel island cottage east of the Sault, and spent August touring France and Italy.
Though he no longer has any direct dealings with the steel industry, he still has an abiding interest in the fortunes of Essar Steel Algoma and the state of the industry.
Essar acquired Algoma to establish a North American foothold in the steel market and it has spent billions on steel making upgrades and environmental emission controls.
But Essar has also broken ground for a new $1.6 million slab mill built atop an iron ore deposit on the northern Minnesota Iron Range. With a very pro-business state of Minnesota governor, some wonder if Essar may eventually add a rolling mill, along with a welded pipe mill in Minnesota , and leave the Sault out in the cold.
Turcotte replies it's a perfect opportunity for government to "step up" and compete for investment capital from Essar ownership. "The Ruia family are very bright, entrepreneurial people and they go where the opportunity is the best."
