CIS 50th Anniversary Success Stories (Week 4): Don Listwin

As part of its 50th Anniversary Celebration, Canadian Interuniversity Sport presents the CIS 50th Anniversary Success Stories series. Each Thursday throughout the 2011-12 season, we will profile two alumni from CIS member institutions who have made outstanding contributions in areas such as sports, business, politics or in the community.

Huskie volleyballer now leader in cancer research

Former UofS player transitioned from the tech world to found the Canary Foundation

By Bob Florence

SASKATOON - Don Listwin, who is a prairie dog from Saskatchewan, has 30 long, tall redwoods at his home in California.

That’s Don. Feet on the ground, eyes in the sky.

He studied electrical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1970s then went to work with Develcon Electronics of Saskatoon. He later moved to Cisco, a communications and technology company in San Jose. After starting as its marketing man and helping it develop the Internet, he rose to be executive vice-president of Cisco, called the most valuable business in the world. He was making millions.

At age 40, he left.

He soon had a new calling. He served as the CEO of Openwave, which is all about mobile Internet.

When he lost his mother, Grace, to ovarian cancer, and saw his father, Raymond, treated for colon cancer, Don dove into science and research, not doing it, but pursuing it, investing in it. He started the Canary Foundation, leading a team dedicated to the early detection of cancer.

Seven years later, he and the Canary group plow on. This is his work. He is determined to improve the outlook for cancer patients.

“I’m driven,” Listwin said from home in Woodside, California. “If 20 years from now there is a book written about this, I’m happy if there’s one chapter about turning vision into reality.”

Building a team, chasing a dream, that too is Don. He showed that side of him in his college days. In 1976-77 he was a rookie on the University of Saskatchewan volleyball team, as were all the Huskies on the club. Men’s volleyball was a new sport on campus.

Although Listwin wasn’t a starter on a team that featured future Olympian Don Saxton and All-Canadians Brian Gamborg, Kim Harris and Grant (Shoe) Gudmundson, he was with the Huskies to the finish. On a March weekend in 1979, ending the team’s third season, the Huskies came back in the fifth game of the best-of-five final to beat the Manitoba Bisons and win the Canadian championship at McMaster University in Hamilton.

A role player then, Listwin is a front-line guy now.

“Sports clearly helped me understand team building and roles,” he said. “I have a role, like a setter in volleyball. I am directing the show, but not the star blocker or hitter.

“The university and specifically my professor Jerry Huff helped me get excited about problem solving through engineering. These skills can get used in ways you never imagined. Find a mentor for yourself.”

Besides leading the Canary Foundation, Litwin keeps a hand in humanitarian work.

In 1999, he helped launch NetAid, which had international concerts in New Jersey, London and Geneva. Performers included Bono and Mary J. Blige, Bryan Adams and Sheryl Crow. Money from the concerts went to support people in Africa and to refugees in the war in Kosovo.

Through Room to Read, an organization that his wife, Hilary, was on before she married Don, libraries have started in Bangladesh and kindergartens grown in Nepal. Hilary and Don now have social functions at their home in California to raise money and awareness for Room to Read. They travel to Europe and Asia to meet people and ask questions, finding out what more can be done to help educate youth in countries such as Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

Listwin, a man from Western Canada, has ideas all over the map.

Leading the Canary Foundation doesn’t mean a life of boardrooms. He talks with researchers in labs in the Canary Center at Stanford University. He is a member of the board of scientific advisers with the National Cancer Institute in the United States, an engineer who is out and about with a curious mind and big ambition.

“I also spend time with development staff planning events to introduce Canary to the community,” he said. “We run a major luncheon in February, a national scientific symposium in May; lots of event planning and details. 

“I also go on calls to see major donors to give them an update. We do a lot of tours to introduce folks to the center.”

Here he comes. There he goes.

Although it's more than 30 years since Litwin finished university, for him the education continues.