ALLAN MICHAEL JOHNSON

Adjust Text Size: A+ A-

ALLAN MICHAEL JOHNSON

October 2, 1935 - August 23, 2025

Allan’s rich and remarkable life story begins on Jubilee Avenue in Winnipeg on the morning of October 2, 1935. His mother, Margaret, had travelled from their farm on Big Point to have her first child with the support of family in “the City”. He was named Allan Michael, for his father Haraldur Allan and his grandfather Michael Forsley.

Allan’s earliest years were spent on his parents’ farm on Big Point, the Icelandic settlement on the west shore of Lake Manitoba. Within four years of his arrival, the Johnson family had grown to include two more boys, his brothers Roland Bodvar and Arthur Lloyd and, from the outset, the three were thick as thieves - playing pranks, sharing adventures, and calling each other ‘Johnny’ as they fought, made-up and then fought again. Allan began school in the one-room Big Point School. Following their father Harry’s sudden death in 1939, their mother Margaret moved the family into the nearby village of Langruth. There they lived till 1945 when the family returned to Big Point, this time to the Hanneson farm after their mother’s remarriage. Allan and his brothers shared a very high regard for their stepfather Hall, who taught them how to work - to farm, to repair and to build things - and who also ensured that they were welcomed into the large Hanneson family of stepbrothers and sisters. Sister Linda Gail was born four years later.

Allan boarded with his Uncle Archie Johnson while attending high school in Langruth. The summer that he graduated, he was working in the town’s Manitoba Pool Elevator when his father’s cousin, Brandon College professor Bjarni Thordarson, brought in a load of grain. He asked Allan what he would be doing, having finished high school. Allan’s plan was to attend United College in Winnipeg till that moment when, as he has said, that 20-minute conversation changed the course of his life. “Bjarni arranged for me to attend Brandon College and to live in the men’s residence. I was dropped off at the front door two weeks later and was immediately overwhelmed by the bigness of the city of Brandon!” Allan always considered himself fortunate to have attended Brandon College, living and studying together with his classmates and building relationships that lasted a lifetime. The Faculty also treated the students as family, imparting appropriate measures of guidance and discipline.

Allan financed his education in a variety of ways - waiting tables in the dining hall, selling mail order men’s clothing from his dorm room, and running ‘lotteries’, as examples. He and close friend Harold Stewart both joined the Canadian Officers Training Corps (Canadian Provost Corps) and underwent Military Police training for three years. Harold recently reminded us of their adventures racing on the Carberry Sandhills, each driving one of the military’s finest Harley Davidsons - we are grateful that both Allan and Harold lived to tell the tale. After graduating, Allan was posted to the Prairie Command Provost Company in Winnipeg, after which he was commissioned as a full Lieutenant. Allan said that his time in the military was not only salaried (thus helping with his school costs) but that the training he received proved to be the most valuable management training of his career.

After celebrating the 60th anniversary of their graduating class at a Brandon reunion in 2016, Allan compiled, edited and published a book of the life stories of the Class of ’56. In it he reflects upon his discovery, over the years, that all it took to be a part of the family was to have shared time at Brandon College.

Allan graduated with the Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in English Literature and Sociology and a minor in Religious Studies. Once again, cousin Bjarni Thordarson provided seminal advice, suggesting that he obtain a teaching permit, and so, at age 20, Allan was appointed Principal of Stonewall Collegiate and Public School - where he taught all of the sciences. Following a successful and rewarding year in Stonewall, Allan decided to seek further academic training in teaching and, in May 1958 he received the Bachelor of Pedagogy degree.

Allan had his first taste of overseas work and travel at this juncture - passions that he pursued all of his life. In 1958, he went to Ethiopia where he taught high school sciences for three years. He and Maureen Sills had been married the year before and their eldest daughter, Kathleen Patricia, was born in Addis Ababa in 1960. During these years, Allan travelled extensively in the region and also north to Lebanon, to Beirut and Kfar Mechki, birthplace of his grandfather Michael Forsley. With the attempted coup against Emperor Haile Selassie in 1960-1961, Allan finished his teaching contract and returned home.

During the period 1961 to 1965, Allan taught at Kelvin High School (English, Biology, Chemistry), then moved to Gordon Bell High School as Science Department Head, 1965 to 1969. Pursuing summer and evening course work during this period, he received the Bachelor of Education degree in 1963 and the Bachelor of Science degree in 1967. Also in 1967, he was awarded a Shell Merit Fellowship at Stanford University. There he had the opportunity to work with renowned mathematician George Polya, an experience which had a profound and lasting effect on Allan’s philosophy of teaching and on his approach to science education. One shining and lasting example of the value of this experience was the creation of the Manitoba Schools Science Symposium, co-founded by Allan and Brian Hyslop in 1971. Allan served as Chair of the MSSS from 1971 to 1977.

Allan was awarded a sabbatical leave for the period 1969 to 1971 and a research fellowship to take the doctoral program in Educational Administration at the University of Houston. Relocating to Texas with his family, which had now grown to include daughters Colleen Diane and Karen Leslie, Allan specialized in organizational systems and behavioural and management theory. His dissertation was on the topic of Organizational Climate. He received the Doctorate of Education degree in 1971 and returned to the Winnipeg School Division, this time as Vice-Principal of Hugh John MacDonald School.

His career choices from this point forward reflect three major dimensions of Allan, as illustrated in his talent and skill, his intellectual orientation and his deeply-held views on education. Firstly, Allan was a consummate teacher whose total focus was always on the learner. Secondly, Allan’s view was always a systems-wide view - whether that system existed within a group, a classroom, a school system, a government department, a university, a province or a nation. Thirdly, Allan believed deeply that education was fundamental to achieving and sustaining a democratic society.

In 1973, Allan was recruited to assist in developing a Professional Development Branch for the Department of Education. He was responsible for the design and implementation of professional development programs for school boards, superintendents and the staffs of the 48 school divisions in Manitoba - essentially a province-wide program of organizational development for the school system. This was followed four years later by a brief secondment to the Management Committee of Cabinet to work on government-wide professional and personal development programs. And then, in 1978, Allan was recruited by Dr. Harry Duckworth to create a continuing education program for the University of Winnipeg.

At the time of Allan’s appointment as their first Director of Continuing Education and Community Service, the University of Winnipeg offered degree-credit courses in spring, summer and evening sessions. Allan’s approach was to develop the breadth and scope of the University’s program in direct response to the needs of the community. These initiatives included making degree credit studies viable for the adult working public by offering courses at various worksites during the noon hour (University at Noon), formulating a University After Work schedule of course offerings, and placing degree credit courses in a variety of locations off-campus - in office buildings, museums and community centres. A full-scale degree program was developed and offered in the community of Selkirk and evening school programming was rationalized. Allan also developed and implemented extensive certificate programming to meet the professional development needs of employees in business, industry and government, at the same time enabling various segments of the labour force to keep pace with the rapidly evolving information technology. It must be added here that, under Allan’s leadership, the U of W offered the first courses in microcomputers and the first mini-university summer programs in Canada.

In 1985, Allan joined the Manitoba Institute of Management (MIM). The six-person team of the Institute worked locally, nationally and internationally on various projects in management and organization development - for business, industry, government and the not-for-profit sector. Allan was responsible for most of MIM’s work in the 14 Eastern Caribbean countries, planning and implementing programming to support management and network development across the region. As an example, he matched senior managers from the public services of ten Eastern Caribbean countries with Deputy Ministers, ADMs and Directors from the civil services of Manitoba and Ontario, for the purpose of mutual professional development. Each partner arrived with a project or a problem to solve which would become the focus of their time together. And as always, Allan’s focus was on the issues and the people at hand - the learners - but at the same time he was focused on establishing the means and methods for this international partnership approach to be sustainable by the parties in future. As an outcome of this specific partnering, the International Management Associates Network was incorporated as a regional non-governmental organization in May 1992. Allan also worked with the Caribbean Airports Project under the direction of Lynn Bishop. His specific work was directed at improving the management capability of the 22 Caribbean airport managers and the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Agency. Again, and as well as addressing immediate issues and challenges, a significant part of his focus was on creating longer term capacity and benefit. And again, this work resulted in the incorporation of the Caribbean Airports Associates Network in January 1993.

Pursuing another strong interest, Allan established a computer services division at MIM, developing and implementing computer-assisted management systems for small business. The division was privatized in 1989, at which time Allan took over management of the company. And, in 1995, he incorporated a new company - Infobahn Access Services, Inc. to establish one of the first internet service provider companies in Winnipeg.

Allan’s keen interest in computers and technology continued throughout his life - creating videos and powerpoint presentations set to music, managing photo and filing systems, tracking databases of Icelandic ancestral records, and maintaining his four websites.

Community and professional service were always important to Allan. Examples include the St. Vital United Church, the Board of Governors of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Science Teachers’ Association of Manitoba, and the Canadian College of Teachers, where he served first as President of the Manitoba Chapter in 1975 and then as National President from 2004 to 2007. Allan’s professional contributions were recognized in a number of ways in the course of his career. He took a very personal pride in the plaque to thank ‘Hustling Doc Johnson’ presented to him by the students at Hugh John MacDonald School. Another gratifying honour was the City of Winnipeg Community Service Award presented to him by Mayor Bill Norrie in 1983 in recognition of Allan’s pioneering work in creating the Continuing Education Program at the University of Winnipeg.

Allan and Maureen divorced in 1984. In 1997, he retired and moved to the Ottawa-Gatineau region with his partner, Joanne DiCosimo. He selected a new home for them in Aylmer, Quebec - one which required a complete rebuild - and then he set to work, room-by-room, inch by inch. He loved gardening, needlepoint, photography, playing music (harmonica and string instruments) and travel, among many other interests. On the internet one recent night, Allan found a list of all of the countries in the world and he proceeded to check off the ones he had visited, which added up to 65 countries. “There are so many left to see!” were his words.

For 20 years, Allan was the volunteer canvasser for the Kidney Foundation on his Aylmer Street, enabling him to meet all of his neighbours, to sit in their kitchens and to come to know them and their young families. His questioning of the young neighbours about their experiences in school were always of interest to their parents, who often commented on how much they learned when Allan spoke with their children. Allan also took over the kitchen and his love of cooking and baking and entertaining knew no limits. At an Ottawa cocktail party, he waited impatiently to be asked the inevitable question ‘and what do you do? - and his answer was always “I am a household administrator”, said with that big engaging smile.

Allan left us on the afternoon of August 23, 2025, in Wakefield, Quebec. He was predeceased by his father and mother, Haraldur (Harry) and Margaret, his stepfather Hallgrimur (Hall), and his sisters-in-law, Liz and Jaye. He is survived by Joanne, his wife and partner of 45 years, his daughters, Kathy (Allan), Colleen (Jim), and Karen (Pierrette), his grandchildren, Ben (Jenn) and Kayla (Paul) and his great-grandchildren, Griffin, Bryson and Nova.

Allan also leaves his brothers and partners-in-crime, Rollie (Shirley) and Art, sister Linda (Bob), brothers-in-law, Ian, Walter and Peter, his nephews, nieces, and cousins, his Laugardals family in Iceland and many, many friends here and in other parts of the globe.

Allan’s interment has taken place. Family and friends will continue to toast Allan and to remember him at gatherings throughout this, his 90th year. There are many ways those who loved and admired him can choose to remember Allan Michael Johnson. You can plant a Manitoba chokecherry tree, drink a fine Caribbean rum, bake a 9-layer vinarterta, or waltz as you sing the words to 'As Time Goes By'. And, should you choose, gifts can be made in Allan’s honour and memory to the Faculty of Education’s Scholarship Fund at Brandon University, to the Kidney Foundation of Canada or to the Winnipegosis Museum and Historical Society.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Sep 27, 2025