The SFU community is mourning the loss of former university chancellor Milton Wong, a revered community leader, visionary and philanthropist, who died Dec. 31 at home in Vancouver after battling pancreatic cancer.

Wong served as SFU chancellor from 1999 until 2005 after receiving an honorary degree from the university in 1998.

“Milton Wong leaves an extraordinary imprint on Simon Fraser University,” says SFU President Andrew Petter. “As a visionary chancellor, his boundless intellectual energy and passion for social justice propelled many groundbreaking initiatives and significant programs.

“He was a driving force behind the expansion of SFU’s downtown campus, a pioneer in supporting the development of Aboriginal programming, and an exponent of SFU’s extraordinary commitments to community engagement.”

A passionate philanthropist, Wong continued to give to SFU after serving two terms as chancellor. He and his family donated $3 million to help relocate SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA) to the Woodward’s redevelopment. He also served as chair of the $30-million capital fundraising campaign for the SCA.

“My hope is that this centre for creative discovery, dialogue and interaction will help to return the Downtown Eastside – the neighborhood I grew up in – to its historical place as the heart of Vancouver,” Wong said. The Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre opened at the school in January 2010.

Wong was born in Vancouver in 1939 to Chinese immigrants, the eighth of nine children. He graduated from UBC in 1963 with a degree in political science and economics.

He entered the corporate world and in 1980 founded the financial management firm M.K. Wong and Associates, which later became HSBC Global Asset Management. He quickly earned the respect and admiration of the business community and became a champion of social responsibility and volunteerism.

Wong received the Order of Canada in 1997 and Vancouver’s highest honour, the Freedom of the City award, in July 2011 when Mayor Gregor Robertson called him “an outstanding Canadian and proud son of Vancouver.”

The Globe and Mail once singled him out as one of a handful of “nation builders” and he was recognized nationally for his contributions to advancing the quality of government and public policy in Canada.

Wong, who will be inducted into the Business Laureates of B.C. Hall of Fame in May, raised funds for organizations including the B.C. Cancer Foundation and the Salvation Army and co-founded Vancouver's annual Dragon Boat Festival.

Former SFU president Michael Stevenson once described Wong’s "great gifts" to SFU as "his driving intellectual energy and curiosity, his deep social conscience, and his acute eye and ear for social and behavioural changes that affect the ways we live and think.”

The university has benefited from his “seemingly endless stream of ideas and proposals,” he added. “The range of his influence on SFU is nothing short of astonishing."

Once asked to reflect on what mark he will leave on SFU, Wong replied humbly, "It's really completely the reverse. It's actually a question of what mark the university has left on me."

Wong leaves behind his wife Fei, daughters Andrea, Sarah and Elizabeth, sons-in-law Kevin and Joe, and three grandchildren. A memorial is being planned for later this month.

His family has asked those wishing to honour Wong's legacy to consider a donation to causes that were important to him: Camp Artaban of the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Centre for Pancreatic Cancer, a new joint project of the BC Cancer Foundation and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation

To read President Petter’s blog entry on Milton Wong, visit http://envision.sfu.ca/2012/01/03/milton-you-will-be-missed/