The Western community is mourning the loss of Michael Gourley, 65, a former university vice-president (finance and administration), who died Friday, March 2 at Toronto General Hospital.
“Although he worked on financial issues throughout his extraordinary career, Mike was profoundly a ‘people person,’” said Paul Davenport, former Western president. “He sought to solve problems by working with people, listening to competing views and finding a reasonable middle ground. This approach made him an extremely valuable collaborator in government, the private sector and in his outstanding work at Western University, where we served a year together.”
By way of example, Davenport cited Gourley’s work as chair and founding member of the Ontario Innovation Trust, which profoundly changed the landscape for research in Ontario universities.
“Mike will be missed by all who knew and worked with him at Western and throughout the Ontario university system,” Davenport said.
Most recently, Gourley served as a committee chair for Sentry Select and as a board of directors member of the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute. Prior to retirement, he was a partner of Pricewaterhouse Coopers Canada LLP, CEO and vice-chair of the Ontario Financing Authority and chair of the Ontario Electricity Financing Corporation.
He served as Deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Treasurer and Deputy Minister of Economics for the Province of Ontario as well as the Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Deputy Minister of the Office of the Budget of Ontario.
Gourley is survived by his mother Lowell Gourley; wife, Suzanne; children, Joel Gourley and Emily O’Brien; grandchildren Madison and Zachary O’Brien; brothers Steve, Andy and Mark; sisters, Sylvia, Pat and Susan; and many nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends from 6-8 p.m. Friday, March 30 at Humphrey Funeral Home, A.W. Miles Chapel Limited, 1403 Bayview Ave., Toronto (south of Davisville Avenue). A memorial service will be held in the chapel at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 31.
In lieu of flowers, donations to the Liver Transplant Fund of the Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation.