Colleagues are celebrating the life and career of Ray Torresan, the founder of one of Vancouver's most successful advertising and PR agencies, who died of cancer on Sunday aged 73.
"Ray was one of the first true professional public relations mad men in Vancouver," said Frank Palmer, CEO of DDB Canada.
"He was bigger than life and one of the best at his trade in Canada. Always the ultimate gentleman to both his competition and agency friends, he will be missed."
A graduate of Vancouver College, Torresan opened his first advertising office in a friend's boat repair shop in 1959 at the age of 19 and used an orange crate for a desk.
Lyndon Grove, a long-time colleague, has been ghost-writing Torresan's memoir.
"The manuscript is finished, and he was still reviewing it at the time he died," Grove told Business in Vancouver.
Grove described Torresan as "unconsciously charismatic."
"He had enormous charisma, but he didn't play it," Grove said. "He was a very generous man and a very honest man."
During his career, Torresan worked with five Canadian prime ministers – including Pierre Elliot Trudeau (pictured left with Torresan, right) during his first election campaign – and his corporate clients included Pepsi-Cola, Nabob Foods and ICBC.
The company Torresan founded, Torresan | TCI Communications, grew to Canada's second largest advertising and PR firm. It had six offices across Canada, with branches in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Torresan eventually sold the company to the Omnicom Group.
A funeral mass is scheduled to be held at the Church of Christ the Redeemer in West Vancouver on June 1 at 10 a.m.
