The Cemetery :: Board of Directors

Grete Hale, C.M., B.J., G.C.L.J., D.U., F.H.S.C., F.R.C.G.S. – President   Graduating in journalism from Carleton University in 1954, Beechwood Cemetery President Grete Hale, having served as Director of the North American Life Assurance Company, Director of Consumers Gas, and as Chairman of the Board of Morrison Lamothe Inc. from 1989 to 2004, has demonstrated her unrivalled leadership in the boardrooms of Canadian business, and in the social-conscious realm of the humanities. Grete's list of accomplishments and awards and special recognitions is all but infinite; among them, Order of Canada, Senator in the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, Woman of Distinction-Mayor of Ottawa's Award for Community Service, Lifetime Achievement Award with the YM-YWCA, Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of Confederation, the Ottawa-Carleton Philanthropy Award, Outstanding Volunteer of the Year, Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award-Lifetime Achievement Category, Queen's Jubilee Silver Medal, Ottawa Community Builder of the Year Award, Scouts Canada Foundation National Salute Award, and an Honourary Doctorate from the University of Ottawa. Grete served on the Agricultural Food and Beverage Sectoral Advisory Group, reporting to the Minister of International Trade on the Free Trade Agreement, was reappointed to serve for the GATT negotiations and NAFTA, chaired the Task Force to amalgamate the three Ottawa nursing schools under Algonquin College, served as a Board Member of the Hospice at May Court and was founder of the Friends of the National Library of Canada. She published an autobiography of her father entitled The Life and Times of Cecil Morrison, The Happy Baker of Ottawa. Grete has served as a Director at Beechwood since 1992.