Jerry Lloyd devoted much of his early career to student athletics. A talented former basketball student-athlete, he completed his bachelor degree and graduate work in the US, graduating from the advanced management program at Harvard Business School. He began his career as a high school teacher before moving on to BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology), to serve as its athletic director. There he coached the men's basketball team, developing lifelong friendships with his players.
“Jerry was a strong supporter of B.C. college athletics,” says former colleague Mal Stelck. “As the athletic director at BCIT, he was acutely aware of the challenges that athletics faced, and was always supportive of ideas that could improve things.”
He was founder and president of B.C.'s Totem Athletic Conference, now known as PACWEST, as well as founder and president of the 4-West Athletic Conference (a predecessor of the CCAA that included B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba). He also served as president of the local high school athletic association, president of the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League and director of B.C. Boys Basketball Association.
He participated in the CCAA's early 1972 meetings as a B.C. representative and later served three terms as a vice-president on the first CCAA executive board (1974-77). During that time he contributed to the constitution and did research on the regionalization of the CCAA’ individual participating conferences.
“He was a valuable resource to anyone involved in the political architecture of college sport,” says Stelck. “He was politically savvy, and could always be counted on to analyse the potential strengths and weaknesses of every situation.”
He would eventually become BCIT’s dean of students, then principal of the aviation campus. After leaving BCIT he dedicated the rest of his career to aviation, serving as president and CEO of the B.C. Aviation Council, executive director of the Aerospace Industry Association of B.C., and chairman of the advisory committee to the board of NavCanada. Jerry received the William Van Horn Visionary Award in 2005 for outstanding leadership and development in air tourism.
