January 4, 2018
Former University of Wyoming Math Assistant Professor Dorothy Stodola made a big difference
in alumnus Stan Grad’s college career. He says: “She was short, stout, in her mid-40s,
and her attitude was ‘I’m not a mathematician—I’m a math teacher. I sympathize with
the freshman and sophomores and understand their difficulties when they don’t want
to be brilliant specialists doing research in the subject.’ She always had a common-sense
approach and helped me puzzle through the more complicated problems.” (Photo by The
Alberta Order of Excellence)
Alumnus Stan Grad founded energy companies and then followed his passion—ranching
and draft horses.
By Tamara Linse
Alumnus Stan Grad is obsessed with the heavy horse pull, a centuries-old event in
which two draft horses in harness pull twice to three times their combined body weight.
It began in 2001 when Grad fell for a team of brawny Percherons, Ike and Pete, who
were competing for the middleweight division at the Calgary Stampede.
“You wouldn’t know where I could buy a team of good-looking gray horses like that
pair?” he asked their owner.
“You can buy these two if they don’t win tomorrow night,” the owner replied. The team
came in second, and Grad bought them for $20,000.
The rest is history. In 2009, Grad’s heavyweight team of Belgians, Jim and Ben, set
a new Calgary Stampede record of pulling a 13,000-pound sled 14 feet. Then they broke
their own record the next day by dragging a 13,100-pound sled. Together, the team
weighed 5,026 pounds.
Then, in 2011, Grad’s 5,134-pound Belgian team of Ben and Roy broke a record yet again
by pulling 13,300 pounds in the heavyweight division. A dramatic image of that team
painted by Western artist Shannon Lawlor was featured on the official 2017 poster
of the Calgary Stampede.
“I love the big horses,” Grad said in an interview with Southern Alberta Institute
of Technology. “A buddy of mine that I co-founded Canyon Technical with got me into
them. He taught me how to be a teamster and how to drive the horses competitively.”
Grad and his wife, Jane, are the owners of Soderglen Ranches, the name of which Grad
picked up during his time as a student at the University of Wyoming. The ranch is
one of the largest seedstock cattle operations in Canada. It raises Black Angus, Red
Angus, Simmental and Charolais, and its own breeds, CCM and Red and Black MAX. The
ranch runs a breeding herd of 2,600 cows at three locations in southern Alberta that
encompass 22,500 acres.
Though horses and ranching are Grad’s passion, he has done many other things. He grew
up in Alberta, Canada, and worked on a dairy farm, which led to his lifelong love
of ranching. A self-confessed poor student, he earned a degree from the Southern Alberta
Institute of Technology, worked as a roughneck, and then came to UW and earned a degree
in petroleum engineering.
After graduation, he served as president and CEO of Grad and Walker Energy Corp.,
which was bought by Crestar Energy in the 1990s. Grad went on to found, direct or
chair additional energy companies, including MAX Minerals, Standard Energy, Wellco
and Canyon Technical Services, one of Canada’s largest hydraulic fracturing companies.
Grad also has been involved with the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS). His
teenage daughter Kristine tragically died after a car accident in 1990, and so he
has lent his long-term support to emergency medical transportation and treatment for
accident victims in rural Alberta.
Grad is an entrepreneur and philanthropist, for which he received the Alberta Order
of Excellence, the highest honor the Canadian province bestows. He supports UW and
is a founding member of the Calgary Stampede Foundation.
“If you’ve got the combination of the education and the drive and ambition, you can
do great things,” Grad says.
