SCHROEDER, Harold

HAROLD SCHROEDER 1936 – 2025 Dr. Harold (Hal) John Schroeder, aged 88, of Lethbridge died peacefully at home on February 2, 2025.
Harold was predeceased by his parents Wilhem and Sara (Doerksen) Schroeder, his first wife Willo (Sutherland), siblings Bill (Hilda Ens), Sally (Frank Isaac), George (Helen Steer), Elfreida (John Bergman) and Wally (Jennie Oshanski) as well as his brother-in-law Bob Loewen.
He is survived by his loving wife and best friend Mary Fulton-Schroeder, son Timothy (Amanda Thomas), daughter Jennifer (Sheldon Dyck), stepdaughters Nancy, Cindy and Rebecca Johnson and stepson Allan (Karen Brown). He was the deeply loved and devoted Grandpa of Jennifer Horkoff (Keiron Hayes), Shawn Johnson, Alexandria Middleton (Zach Strauss), Dustyn Schroeder, Lucas Middleton, Julian Higgins, James Johnson, Noah Higgins, Kayla Guzzi (Nik), Kendra Dyck (Julian Williams) and William Schroeder as well as the most tender great grandfather to Felix Strauss and Addison Toews. He is also survived by his sister Mary Loewen of Steinbach, Manitoba and his brother Len and sister-in-law Mary of Kelowna as well as numerous cousins, nieces and nephews across Canada who were always important to him.
Harold was born in a farmhouse just north of Rosengard, Manitoba on August 22, 1936. He lived on the mixed farm for nearly eleven years attending the Rosengard one-room school to the completion of grade five. In 1947 the family moved to east Steinbach where he completed grade six and then spent the next six years attending Steinbach Collegiate Institute.
Following some jobs in the auto and mining industries, he graduated with a B. Comm. Degree from the University of Manitoba in 1965. After studying toward an M.B.A. at the University of British Columbia he returned to Winnipeg to serve as a senior internal management and systems auditor for a national retailer. During this time in Manitoba, Harold and Willo were married on February 25, 1967. In 1968 he made a drastic career change from management and auditing to teaching. After a year in the Kenora, Ontario campus of Confederation College, he joined the Faculty of Commerce at St. Mary’s University in Halifax in 1969. He would say later the job in Kenora made him realize he loved teaching and wanted a career in it.
In 1973 Harold embarked on a program of inter-disciplinary studies in Ethics and Business involving the Midwestern Theological Seminary in Kansas, Missouri and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1974, while at St. Mary’s, the Mennonite Brethren Church hired him to preach for one year.
In 1975, following a year back at St. Mary’s, Harold and Willo with their two children moved from Halifax to Los Angeles to start his inter-disciplinary Ph.D. studies in Social Ethics and Business Policy and Strategy. With coursework completed, he rejoined St. Mary’s in 1977 and later completed his dissertation and other degree requirements.
In 1981 Harold joined the University of Lethbridge as a founding member of the School of Management. In 1985 he was selected to serve as a one-semester exchange professor at Hokkai-Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan.
In 1987, his first wife Willo died, and Harold spent the next six years as a single dad of two teenagers.
In 1989 he met Mary Johnson, and they married in 1993 and with his usual grace he became the stepdad to four young adults.
In 1999 he was selected by the Canadian Federation of Business School Deans to serve on a team of four Canadian instructors conducting a series of courses for practicing managers at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2000 he was again selected for the professor exchange program in Hokkai-Gakuen University in Japan. In 2002 he was asked to delay his retirement to spend a summer at the Edmonton campus of the University of Lethbridge to teach and provide some mentoring in the Strategic Management course. He retired in 2003 after 22 years at the University of Lethbridge.
During much of his career at two universities Harold was very involved in the broader academic community. He served in the management of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) for nine years, with three years at the divisional level and six years on the national executive, including two years as treasurer. In the latter part of his career, he got very involved in case research and authored numerous cases. “Bringing real-life management cases to the classroom”, especially for students in western Canada, increasingly became his passion as he was approaching the end of his career. In the mid-1990s he led a group of University of Lethbridge faculty members and several other case researchers in a case writing project which culminated in several editions of Cases and Readings in Strategic Management, edited by him. Published by Nelson Canada, it became the first custom case publishing project in Canada.
Over the years, he was frequently invited to serve on expert panels to promote case research and assist aspiring case researchers at conferences of the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), the World Association for Business and Society, the World Association for Case Research and Application (WACRA) and various regional associations. In the role he influenced or mentored numerous younger case researchers from places like Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Japan and various locations in the US and Canada. In 1996 one of his cases was selected for the plenary session of the WACRA conference in Warsaw, Poland. In 1997 he was given the outstanding service to the world case research community award at the WACRA conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. On many occasions he also served as reviewer for The Case Research Journal published by NACRA.
Harold was a long and active member of McKillop United Church and for many years served on Presbytery.
Above all his accomplishments Harold was deeply loved and loved deeply.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 pm, Saturday, February 15, 2025, at the MCKILLOP UNITED CHURCH, 2329 15 AVE SOUTH, LETHBRIDGE, Alberta, with Reverend Trevor Potter officiating.
To watch the Service via livestream, please visit www.mckillopunited.ca/funerals.
Flowers are gratefully declined. In lieu of flowers, for those who wish, a donation in Harold’s memory may be made to a food bank of their choosing.
Visit www.mbfunerals.com to send a condolence.