Audrey and nelson skalbania 2018 video
"I only remember the good things in my life.
I elect not to remember the unpleasant things, blank them out." - Nelson
Skalbania was born in into a Saskatchewan polish family of modest means. His family moved to Vancouver’s east side when he was a youngster. He likes to tell his friends that in his early days he had to stay away from school on wash day, because he only had one pair of pants and that he had to walk about ten kilometres from home to Vancouver’s Woodward downtown to buy a bag a of groceries.
In the mid’s, when he was flipping real estate worth $ million annually, he became a West Coast business icon, a flashy, on-the-edge antidote to the traditionally grey Canadian business world.
He owned a private jet, along with a feet yacht in a the Mediterranean and a private art collection that included Rodins and Renoirs.
"In , I was a structural engineer at a job site supervising the installation of reinforcing rods at a high rise concrete apartment that I designed in Vancouver. A man approached me as I was standing outside the half finished building, and tells me he is from Chile and that he had bought an apartment site in West Vancouver.
He was looking for someone to design and construct an apartment building on the site. The Chilean was of Italian origin and his name was Aldo Orezzoli.
Audrey and nelson skalbania 2018 pictures
Nelson M. In , Skalbania graduated from University of British Columbia with a bachelor's degree in applied science, then received his Professional Engineering certification in He received a master's degree in civil engineering in at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. His initial profession as a consulting engineer in the early s expanded into an extensive real estate career in parallel with the consulting business. In Skalbania was convicted of illegally using money from an investor to cover debts in his real estate firm, and was sent to jail.So I ended up designing and building a forty suite, ten storey apartment building on his site.
Fast forward to June Aldo calls me from Santiago to tell me about what was happening in Chile. There was a full blown Civil war underway. Santiago was under martial law, riots in the streets with a 9 pm curfew in effect.
The leftist government of Salvador Allende was under siege.
Audrey and nelson skalbania 2018 photos You will receive email notifications when changes are made to the online memorial, including when family and friends post to the Guestbook. Audrey was born on April 21, , in Edmonton, Alberta. She was the eldest daughter of Mykola and Anna Leschynsky, to many others she was sister, mother, baba, great baba, aunt and cousin. She pursued the life of a teacher, mentor, knowledge keeper, counsellor and was a woman of influence. She had a profound and lasting effect on countless students.He tells me that the escudo black market exchange rate was $1 US for Escudos, meaning for $1 US you could buy $ US worth of Gucci ties. So what can I buy that is more or less portable? He tells me the jewels and gold has already left the country, but there are paintings owned by the rich, Monets, Renoir etc.
that you can buy with US cash. Chile is mainly populated by Italians, Germans, Spanish and many of Jewish origin.
Eleni skalbania It was 40 years ago today that Wayne Gretzky boarded an airplane with two teammates set for an unknown destination. A decade before The Trade that shipped Gretzky out of Edmonton to Los Angeles and sent shockwaves throughout the city, the country, and the sport, there was a similarly bizarre transaction that resulted in him becoming an Oiler. That was all it took before money-losing owner Nelson Skalbania decided he needed to sell off the year-old centre to recoup some cash. Everyone knows where he ended up, of course. A prodigy as a child growing up in Brantford, Ont.But the European immigrants wanted to decorate and furnish their homes with quality art and furnishings from Europe.
As a result paintings from the early 's were brought from Europe via ships sailing through the straits of Magellen"- Nelson.
Gladstone Secondary school
Nelson graduated from grade twelve in with straight A's except for one subject.
He played all sports including track, baseball, rugby and basketball. He was captain of the rugby and basketball teams. He was awarded the Chris Spencer scholastic scholarship to attend UBC for his district, which included all UBC fees for five years of study.
Graduated in civil engineering from UBC with a in During to Nelson worked as ac a structural engineer for Read, Jones Christoffersen and received a P.
Eng in
Masters of Science
(Civil Engineering)
Nelson wrote S.A.T.
Audrey and nelson skalbania 2018 Nelson Mathew Skalbania born February 12, is an engineer and businessman from Vancouver , British Columbia , who is best known for signing a then year-old Wayne Gretzky to the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association , and for his high-profile real estate flipping. During his career, Skalbania earned notoriety for flipping properties, both real and franchised. On December 8, , news agency UPI reported that Skalbania, who had publicly vowed, during the previous month, to never file for bankruptcy , had announced, on Vancouver radio station CKNW , that he had filed for personal bankruptcy. In the latter 20th century, Skalbania bought and subsequently sold, or folded, several sports teams, including:. Skalbania also made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball ; the team was eventually sold to George Argyros.exams and applied for postgraduate studies at several universities in He was accepted with a fully paid scholarship at CalTech (California Institute of Technology) at Pasadena, CA. He graduated in with a (Master of Science), specializing in vibrations, seismic engineering.
McKenzie, Snowball & Skalbania
Nelson joined a two man structural engineering firm, McKenzie & Snowball in and paid $ for a third share of the company.
It became McKenzie, Snowball & Skalbania (MS&S). In eight years, it had one hundred and twenty employees and three offices. Nelson bought his two partners out. MS&S then had three consulting divisions: mechanical, electrical and structural. The highlight was in when MS&S won the structural engineering contract for a proposed fifty story building in downtown Vancouver after a world wide competition.
This contract was awarded by Premier Bennett provided SKALBANIA personally did the structural engineering for the proposed fifty storey Bennett Building at Howe St in Vancouver.
Nelson worked on the design for two years, visiting every major global highrise including the New York Twin Towers. During the election in , Bennet's government lost to Barrett's NDP. Barrett promptly fired all the original consultants and hired a new team. At the same time they bought the full city block south of Hornby, flipped the fifty storey design on its side, covering the two blocks with two three storey buildings, which is currently still occupied by the Vancouver Law Courts.
Family
Nelson has married twice, first, to Audrey Anna Lynn Leschynsky (), with whom he had two daughters, Rozanda Lyn and Taryn Gae, and, later, divorced and then married Eleni in Eleni was a native of Santorini, Greece, who later founded with Nelson Vancouver's Wedgewood Hotel & Spa.
Sports & Hobbies
JERICHO TENNIS CLUB - tennis, squash, racquetball
Nelson played chess internationally, skied, ran athletic track and nine marathons, including New York, Venice and the original Marathon to Athens.
He also played squash, tennis and racquetball at least once a week for fifty years.
Point Grey Rd, Vancouver
Nelson lived in his waterfront home at Point Grey Road, described as a “breathtaking one-of-a-kind property located on the most prestigious street of Vancouver - The Golden Mile" for over 35 years.