His parents, Howard and Rita Stensrud, were among Saskatoon’s great champions for those with intellectual disabilities. They attended an early meeting of what was then known as the
Saskatoon Association for the Mentally Retarded and Howard became a three-time president during his service from 1965 to 1993. Later, they were instrumental in launching of Elmwood Residences and Cosmopolitan Industries. “I saw the ways they wanted life to be better for their daughter and my sister, Joanne, at a time when residences and employment opportunities were very limited,” said Stensrud. “Dad was a fixer; he could recognize a problem a mile away, whether it was at Elmwood, Cosmo or within our Miners construction company. He had a special gift, with suchdepth in his vision.

When Joanne was born with cerebral palsy in 1961, he recognized the void in health and care systems. He was an organizer and active on every board. Mom saw that Dad had the time to change the future, was an extraordinary support for those of us at home, and was often the counterbalance in making the important family decisions. “I was often around as a teenager, helping their groups hold fundraisers, often in backyards, and I could see the direction they were taking. I joined Dad’s company and one day, he told me it was time to make my own commitment. I answered ‘Yes, Sir!’ with never a doubt in my mind.”

He joined the Cosmo board in 1992 and served as its president from 1998 to 2002. “The joys out-numbered the struggles and I believed that whatever the board did, it was always about the independence and freedom of our participants.” Stensrud became the key Cosmo spokesperson from 2010 to 2012 when the City of Saskatoon wanted to take the recycling role away from Cosmo — which had a 40-year relationship with the city — and award it to a large integrated waste company operating a city-wide curbside collection program. When the city awarded the contract to Loraas in 2012, Stensrud called it “the biggest disappointment in my time at Cosmo. There was a time when we had the best newspaper recovery system in North America. We could do recovery of paper, glass, plastics and metal for just a few cents per home per month. Since then, Saskatoon has become a less-friendly place to recycle.”

Eventually Cosmo was awarded with the Multi-Unit Residential Recycling program, thanks to its reputation as a very efficient processor. Stensrud remains active with Cosmo, lending a hand to strategic direction, relationships with government and raising its profile in the community, all the while urging its leaders to be financially strong and careful. And his sister is there every Monday through Friday. He is also the president of Family and Friends at Cosmo, making sure services continue at a high level.

With Elmwood, Stensrud looks at the continuing value of the Top of the Rock Foundation. A plaque in the building recognizes the contributions of Al Anderson and Howie Stensrud as founding fathers of the foundation. The dedication reads, “the founders of Elmwood residences dedicated their lives to creating community-based residential supports for individuals experiencing intellectual disabilities. Al and Howie worked tirelessly to create a more human approach to disability services and fearlessly pursued quality of life enhancement for those in need. They made their dream into reality.” Stensrud tells the story of a gift within the family. “My dad’s eldest brother, Brian, was a rock collector, polishing, cutting and turning them into jewelry or something like potash clocks.

We were attending the funeral of my mother’s brother, Jean, when a phone call came. Brian and his wife, Evelyn, had been killed in a car accident in Bozeman, Montana. My dad talked his brothers into setting up the Top of the Rock Foundation, using what was left of Uncle Brian’s estate as a beginning.” The foundation has since been renamed The Stensrud Family Top of the Rock Foundation, and through the family gifts and continued donations, the money allows its residents to go to hockey games, concerts, take holiday trips and see special events, all accompanied by chaperones.

In 2009, Stensrud was appointed to the board of the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority and became its chair in 2015. By December 2017, the authority was dissolved and fell under control of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, with a single office. For Stensrud, it was always a volunteer position. One of the biggest challenges was the campaign to build a Saskatchewan Children’s Hospital. There came a point when the construction budget came in $25-million higher than expected. The Saskatchewan government turned down a request for the funds. Greg Yuel, chair of the Saskatoon Children’s Hospital Foundation, and Stensrud decided to meet one Sunday morning to try and plot the next financial steps. Stensrud promised his wife, Rhonda, he’d be home by 1 p.m. The meeting lasted until after 8 p.m., with Stensrud regretting that he had forgotten that it was his and Rhonda’s wedding anniversary. “I think we established a strong agreement between the foundation and the health authority, which would satisfy our needs, and maintain a strong relationship with the provincial government. The key factor, in my mind, is that without that agreement, I doubt if Jim Pattison would have made his $50-million donation to the hospital. He liked our approach.” The foundation was subsequently renamed the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation, with the hospital itself bearing Pattison’s name. Stensrud said hospital systems across Canada are struggling with the enormous burden of providing 24-hour emergency care. “Rhonda and I were travelling in Florence, Italy, one time, and we saw a chapel where four entry doors were built over the years by seven generations. I thought about the emergency doors at our hospitals. We needed more doors. We have made some advances, with a new emergency clinic at Market Mall, and another in Regina away from the hospital. We just need more doors to acute health care.”

In the business world, Stensrud is the president of Miners Construction, a company which made tremendous gains under the leadership of his father. It specializes in general construction and metal buildings and has its own management and design teams. It is a non-union shop which stresses loyalty with a deferred profit-sharing plan for the key staff. The company is nudging close to $60 million in contracts per year. The company volunteers about 25 per cent of its time working with Elmwood and Cosmo, a philosophy developed by his father. Mike and Rhonda have two children, Kate, 19, and Malcolm, 16. Each has the intention of maintaining the family legacy.

-Ned Powers