He was always drawn to the natural beauty of British Columbia.
As a small boy, Albert Koehler first saw a short video showcasing B.C. on his neighbour’s television, the only TV in the German village of 150 people he grew up in. From that day forward, he read any book about the western part of Canada he could get his hands on.
That was the start of his love of the land he immigrated to when he was 37 years old and he doesn’t regret for one second the decision to bring his wife Jutta and his two young children, Andrea and Albert Junior, along with him on his great adventure.
With his doctorate in engineering and teaching as an assistant professor for several years in Germany, Koehler decided moving to Canada was the goal.
Finding the Future is Koehler’s book about those adventures and what it took to get where he is in his life currently.
“The intention was to write the book mostly for my children and my grandchildren,” he said.
He’s done an English version for people here and a German language version for his friends and family who he grew up with.
“It took me a year to put it all together,” Koehler said.
He sent copies to friends and family and has received a lot of feedback that they enjoyed knowing the details of his life and the reasons behind his decision to move to Canada.
He said it was a challenge to cram his 74 years into 256 pages.
“But nobody would read a thousand-page book, now would they?” he laughed. “Someone told me that when they read the book it was as if they heard me telling the story. It didn’t have it edited - it’s just me.”
Highlights include how he met his beloved wife Jutta, how they grew their family, the trek from Germany to English Bay in Vancouver in 1985 when they looked at each other and said ‘now what?’ and everything else that followed.
Koehler started his career as a mechanic and found he had to start from there in Canada as well, working his way into his own business with a little help from his friends, finding his way to Prince George in 1996 and how he always knew it was important to be part of the community and finding ways to enhance and support and give back.
“Prince George was a better choice for my family,” Koehler said. “I grew up in a country setting, I grew up on a farm and I would never have been a city boy - even though Vancouver is a beautiful place for many. Prince George is just right for us and we immediately immersed ourselves into the community.”
While growing his business, Tribotec, that did specialized consulting work in reducing industry failures, one of several roles he took on included being the Northern BC Honorary German Consular so any issues that arose for the many Germans in the northern part of the province could now access services much closer to home. He provided the service from 2005 to 2013.
He served as a Prince George city councillor from 2011 to 2018, was Chamber of Commerce president from 2008 to 2009, as well as serving on many boards including the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, and Rotary. He was also a driving force behind getting an engineering program into the university. Koehler received an honorary doctorate degree of laws recently from the University of Northern BC and he said he believes it was in recognition of his lobbying for the advanced education program for the north.
“Our life has been quite unique, life has been good and it’s all in the book,” Koehler said.
Finding the Future is available at Books & Co.
