Angus Watt (financial advisor)

James Angus Reid Watt was born on May 4, 1952, in Elmira, Ontario, to Charlotte and Owen Watt. He was named after his grandfathers, Angus Reid and James Watt. His father Owen was a Spitfire pilot in the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force, serving during the liberation of the Netherlands in World War II. At the age of five, Watt moved with his family to Toronto, where he worked various jobs while in school, including at a marina when he was 10 years old for six days a week. He graduated from Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in 1972. Growing up wanting to become a lawyer, Watt attended law classes at York University until he changed his mind in his fourth year, later saying he did not want to "argue that black was white and white was black...for the rest of my life". Shortly after graduating from York with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1974, Watt attended a training program for investment advisors at McLeod Young Weir in Toronto; he did so mainly because the father of a friend of his girlfriend worked there but ended up joining the company. == Career ==

Watt worked as an advisor for a year in Toronto before being transferred to Edmonton in 1976 to develop his own practice; among his first clients was the local entrepreneur Charles Allard. In November 1982, Watt joined the brokerage firm Levesque Beaubien, which was later acquired by National Bank of Canada in 1988. By 1990, he had become the vice-president of Levesque Beaubien, and was one of the investment dealers that assisted with the privatization of Alberta Government Telephones under its holding company Telus Corporation. Angus Watt Advisory Group In 1999, Watt founded the Angus Watt Team with Jane Alm and Jan Frederickson, who later acquired ownership stakes in the business. The team launched its group insurance division in 2002, and changed its name to the Angus Watt Advisory Group in the late 2000s to emphasize its partners' stake in the business. == Philanthropic work ==

In honour of his brother Ian, who died by suicide in 1977, Watt has supported various causes related to mental health. In 1992, he began working with the Personal Development Centre (PDC), which he helped merge into The Support Network, an agency offering a variety of mental health services. Watt served two consecutive terms as a Honorary Consul to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, retiring in 2019. Beginning in 2011, he also served as an honorary lieutenant-colonel with the South Alberta Light Horse (SALH) regiment, which helped liberate the Netherlands during World War II. In 2012, he visited the Netherlands to meet Queen Beatrix and her sister Princess Margriet as honorary consul. He then visited Buckingham Palace to meet Sophie, Countess of Wessex, the colonel-in-chief of the SALH. After his retirement with the rank of honorary colonel in 2019, Watt was elected vice-president of the South Alberta Light Horse Regimental Association, and as of 2023, serves as its chair. == Personal life ==

In 1976, Watt met Heather Rea at a meeting three days after arriving in Edmonton, where she was training to become a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch; they married after his transfer to Edmonton that year. Jim played as a goaltender in the Western Hockey League before graduating with a business degree and working for the Angus Watt Advisory Group as an investment advisor. He became a partner at the group in 2016. == Awards and honours ==