Janet Holder, the woman once regarded as the local figurehead for Enbridge's controversial Northern Gateway pipeline, died Monday following a long battle with leukemia.
"Janet will be dearly missed by everyone at Enbridge," Enbridge president and CEO Al Monaco said in a statement.
"In addition to Janet's many personal and professional achievements, she exemplified our values of integrity and respect. She had a passion to serve and mentor others, and an amazing way of connecting with people."
Holder, 58, was born and raised in Prince George. She returned to the city in 2011, when she was named Enbridge's vice-president for western access and headed the team overseeing the project.
A year later, a new office was opened at Parkwood Place in Prince George as part of a plan to be closer to the communities the project would affect.
"We want to be part of the community," Holder said at the time. "Basically, it's who are are as a company, we really do believe we need to give back to the community, we need to be part of the community."
It meant being out in the community as well as keeping tabs on the project. Holder became the face of the project, speaking at chamber of commerce luncheons and answering questions from the media.
In 2012, Holder bid a record $52,500 for Bea's Tree, the three-foot silver Christmas tree long-time Prince George notable Bea Dezell bought in the 1950s for her Brownie and Girl Guide Christmas parties, at the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation's Festival of Trees.
At the end of 2014, Holder retired saying she wanted to "take a step back and focus on my family and my personal health."
In an interview with The Citizen at the time she took on the job, Holder said her fondest memories of the city were the "hours and hours" on the ball diamond.
In her last year of high school, Holder followed her parents, Merv and Mabel, to Bathurst, New Brunswick where her father worked on building a sawmill financed by Prince George businessmen.
Her parents returned to Prince George over a year later but Holder stayed behind and completed a degree in engineering at the University of New Brunswick and later a masters in business administration at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Holder joined Enbridge in 1992 and was president of gas distribution from 2008 to 2011.
"Janet taught many of us the importance of being positive and supportive of each other, no matter how big the challenge," Monaco said. "Janet's memory and legacy will live on at Enbridge, and for us personally, for many years to come."
In 2014, the federal government approved the project subject to 209 conditions while Enbridge has not yet made a decision on whether to break ground on the project. It would ship 525,000 barrels per day of diluted oildsands crude from the Edmonton area to Kitimat, where it would be loaded on tankers and shipped to Asia.
