36. Kyle Washington

Chair, Seaspan Corp.

36-Kyle-Washington-`CarloRicci131025_VanMag_Ho-Washington_395Age: 45 | 2013: #30Since being sent to Vancouver in 1994 by his father to oversee the family’s huge marine division, Kyle Washington has become a force in the city’s business community. As executive chair of Seaspan Corp., he’s overseen major gains by the shipbuilding, drydock, and barge operator, highlighted by an $8-billion (and growing) contract to build 12 vessels for the federal government that effectively resuscitated a dying industry on the West Coast. Washington is also an active director on the boards of several companies owned by the family and keeps in close touch with his 81-year-old father, Dennis, who amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune in construction, mining, and shipping.Kyle, 45, and his wife, Janelle, support many charitable causes, but he has also earned a reputation as a work-hard, play-harder party guy. Earlier this year, he was handed a three-month driving ban after a bizarre incident when, leaving the West Vancouver Yacht Club, he drove one of his many pricey cars into a ditch. When he blew above the limit, his lawyer argued in court that Washington’s “bizarre behaviour” that night was a reaction to a prescription sleeping pill.

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