Mel Pervais

Melvin "Mel" Pervais (born 1940) is a Canadian-American business executive, entrepreneur, engineer and member of the Ojibwa Nation.

Early life and education Pervais was born and raised on the Fort William Reserve near Thunder Bay, Ontario, the eldest son of eight children. At age five he began his studies in a one-room schoolhouse, housing eight grades, on the reserve. At age twelve he was sent to a Jesuit-run boarding school for Indian boys, the Garnier Residential School, away in Spanish, Ontario, and graduated at sixteen.

Career

Early career

At age sixteen, Pervais started work as a night watchman for the Jones Construction Company. Two months later, he took the opportunity to begin an apprenticeship as an instrument technician with Noranda Mines in Cutler, Ontario. Over the next seventeen years, he held various positions in the power generation industry before joining Johnson Controls in 1973 as the manager of a newly formed calibration engineering department. Pervais redirected the department's focus to nuclear power, boosting sales from $100,000 to $5 million over three years.

Cataract Inc.

Pervais left Johnson Controls in 1976 and, with his expertise and $10,000, started Amalgamated Services in Philadelphia with a business partner, providing engineering services to nuclear power plants. Never shy about his Indian heritage, Cataract's logo had an Indian motif and the company strived to hire Indian employees.

Rhodium 2001's extraction process is notable for being environmentally friendly, requiring no smelter nor airborne emissions, and for being a closely guarded secret. It took two years of research and development by Dickey, who claimed it involved temperature and pressure. Neither Pervais, nor Dickey, were willing to reveal more about the process than that, for fear that other competitors might adopt it, rendering their company irrelevant. Said Pervais, "If you're an environmentalist, it's probably the greatest invention. I don't need a polluting process. I'd stay retired if that was the case."

Service and distinctions

Pervais, whose grandfather was a tribal chief,

In 1982 Pervais was invited by President Ronald Reagan to serve on a private sector task force that encouraged support of community projects including homes for the elderly and day care centers.

Pervais received honorary Doctorates of Engineering from Montana State University in 1995 and Lakehead University in 1996. a national organization promoting personal development, citizenship and leadership among Native American youth.

Chief Joseph Ranch

Chief Joseph Ranch near Darby, Montana.In 1987, Pervais bought the Chief Joseph Ranch, including a lodge built in 1917, a summer home for the family of William S. Ford. After the Fords sold it in 1952, it traded hands several times. When Pervais took it over, the ranch was in poor shape; the barns were falling apart and its perimeter was unfenced. Pervais improved the property and extensively renovated the lodge to its Ford-era conditions over a ten-year period. At the time, he owned a pet bobcat, Toma, named for one of Chief Joseph's wives. Pervais sold the ranch in 2004. Today it is a guest ranch, and also a filming location for the TV series Yellowstone.

Personal Melvin Pervais married his first love, Patricia, shortly after his graduation from the Garnier Indian School. Together they had 6 children. They later separated, then divorced, but remained close, loving, friends, until Patricia's passing in 2017. Pervais married Lynda Hart Bailey, former wife of lawyer F. Lee Bailey, in 1985. Peter MacDonald, a former Navajo Tribal Chairman, served as Bailey's adopted Navajo "father" and offered twelve wild horses, a traditional dowry to the groom and a Navajo medicine man. In accordance with Pervais' Ojibwa heritage, a second ceremony took place at sundown the day after the wedding on the night of a new moon. Pervais is the father of seven children.