Ryan and Jimmy

Herb Shoveller is from Guelph, ON

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Herb Shoveller was born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada and grew up in Lively, a small community west of the city.

After primary and secondary school studies in Sudbury, he spent a year traveling in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before entering the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. There he did an honours BA in philosophy and then did a masters degree in journalism.

After working in agricultural, arts and business news at various publications, he joined The London Free Press daily newspaper at which, in a total of 20 years there, he worked in every news department in a number of difference roles. In the midst of those 20 years, he and his family moved to Hong Kong for two years where Joanne, Herb's wife, helped launch the Asian campus of the University of Western Ontario's Ivey Business School.

The timing to do this book coincided with his family's move from London, Ontario, to Guelph, where Joanne moved to become a vice-president at the University of Guelph. Herb left his newspaper job at The Free Press, where he was business editor, to freelance. Meantime, there had been several overtures to Susan and Mark Hreljac, Ryan's parents, to do a book on Ryan and the wells projects, along with the subsequent addition of Jimmy to their family.

Mark is Herb's nephew, so Herb and his family have been following Ryan's story from the outset and knew it intimately. Further, Herb's wife Joanne was a founding board member of the Ryan's Well Foundation and wrote its original business plan. Mark and Sue made it clear that if a book were to be done, Herb would be the writer. Luckily, events converged to make it possible for him to do the book.