Some Alberta business stories start with an idea scratched onto a napkin. Jeff McCaig’s started three generations earlier, with a trucking business built by his grandfather and carried forward by his father. By the time the Southern Alberta Business Hall of Fame inducted him in 2025, McCaig had taken that inheritance and built it into one of the largest bulk trucking companies in North America. That kind of multi-generational continuity is rare in any industry, and it says something about both the discipline required to run a trucking company and the trust required to hand one down.
A Calgary Upbringing Shaped by the Family Business
McCaig was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and moved to Calgary at age nine, when the family’s trucking business, then managed by his father, acquired a larger trucking operation based in Alberta. He completed his secondary schooling in Calgary before heading to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he earned an Arts Baccalaureate cum laude in Economics. From there he enrolled at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and earned his law degree, beginning his career at a large Calgary-based partnership before opening his own law firm, a move that gave him the freedom to chase the entrepreneurial opportunities that were abundant in Calgary at the time.
From Law Office Back to the Family Firm
By then, the family business had grown well past its original bulk trucking roots into a multi-business enterprise that included oil and gas well drilling and truck leasing. At his father’s urging, McCaig sold his law practice and returned to school for a year, earning a Master of Management Science degree at Stanford University before joining the family firm. He worked alongside his father for roughly a decade, becoming president in 1990 and CEO in 1994, when his father stepped down to focus on health care and philanthropy. Under McCaig’s leadership, Trimac grew into one of the largest bulk trucking companies in North America, building a reputation for operational excellence, safety, and reliability. He continues to shape the company’s direction today as Chair of the Board. Trimac’s growth under McCaig mirrors a broader story in Alberta’s trucking industry, a sector built on hauling the raw materials, from crude oil to bulk chemicals, that the province’s economy depends on. Moving from a family-run operation to one of the largest bulk carriers on the continent required McCaig to combine the legal and financial training he picked up at Harvard, Osgoode Hall, and Stanford with the operational instincts he absorbed growing up around trucks and terminals.
Life Beyond Trimac
After stepping back from daily operations at Trimac, McCaig established a family office to manage his other interests. He is a co-owner of the Calgary Flames and chairs the team’s charitable arm, the Calgary Flames Foundation. His ownership stake in the Flames, paired with his chairmanship of the team’s foundation, extends that same instinct for building institutions that outlast any single leader into the world of professional sport. He also serves as Chair and Partner of Bantrel Co., one of Canada’s largest engineering and construction businesses, and holds directorships at MEG Energy, Sagard Wealth, and several smaller businesses and startups. McCaig lives in Calgary with his wife Marilyn, and together they support causes focused on education, healthcare, and sport. His three adult children, despite busy professional careers of their own, contribute significantly to the family office. When he is not working, McCaig heads for the mountains, spending as much time as he can skiing, climbing, and being in the backcountry.
McCaig’s full laureate biography is available on the Southern Alberta Business Hall of Fame website, where he was celebrated as part of the 2025 class for his decades of leadership in Alberta’s transportation sector and his commitment to the Calgary community.
How many Alberta companies working today can trace their roots back three generations, and what does that kind of staying power say about the way this province does business?
