The horse racing industry will be interested to know that the first president of Standardbred Canada since its inception in 1998 will retire next year

. As a result of Ted Smith's decision, the Board of Directors has formed a search committee to find a successor to Smith, who also is CEO of the organization.

Standardbred Canada is the amalgamation of the former Canadian Trotting Association and the Canadian Standardbred Horse Society. It is a Canada-wide not-for profit organization with approximately 13,500 members. It is the official registry and record-keeping body for the Canadian standardbred industry and has its headquarters at 2150 Meadowvale Blvd. in Mississauga. Smith plans to retire next May.

The search committee members are: Eric Johnston of Prince Edward Island; Rick Karper of Quebec; Jim Lehman and David Stuart, Ontario; Chuck Keeling, British Columbia; Dr. Maurice Stewart of Alberta and Jackson Wittup, Chair of the Board. The Board has engaged The Caldwell Partners International Inc. as consultants to aid in the search for the new CEO.

As part of the process of creating the role profile for the next president, The Caldwell Partners will be speaking with a number of stakeholders to invite their answers to the following questions:

1. What will be the challenges, opportunities and key priorities for the next president of Standardbred Canada?
2. Tell us about the type of experience and the leadership qualities you would like to see in this new leader?
3. Is there someone whom you would recommend we get in touch with about this role?

If you would like to offer your responses to these questions, please get in touch with either Ron Charles ([email protected]) or Heather Ring ([email protected]), the Partners leading the search at The Caldwell Partners International.

After each meeting, the search committee will post updates to the Standardbred Canada website to advise the community of the progress of the search.