Creative Background

After I finished College, I had some serious wanderlust and before getting down to work, set off in my MG Midget to visit Canada, the west coast of the US and a bit of Mexico. Leaving Montreal, I travelled west through the provinces into BC before heading down through Washington, Oregon and California, heading briefly into Tijuana for a few days (I left my car in California and took a bus over), then headed over to the Grand Canyon and explored my way back up through the mid-west before arriving back in Niagara and home to Montreal where I opened my own small business, Steve Inks, and began creating advertisements for a wide variety of clientele, while working for local clients and community newspapers conceptualizing ideas and layouts, illustrations & production.

So part of writing this website now is being able to look back at my life and tie my travels and work together – there was always a common thread.

I always wanted to travel and when the opportunity presented itself, I always said Yes.

Over the years, I worked as a Cartoonist, Layout Artist, Storyboard Artist, Production Manager, Art Director, Account Executive, Marketing Director and finally, as a Creative Director, developing websites for a group of clients which became virtually global.

Early on, I was grateful to have the chance to create advertising concepts for one of Montreal’s largest camera stores at the time while working on a community newspaper, which led to my getting freelance work from advertising agencies as well. I was thrilled to begin freelancing for Greenhouse, which was housed in an old greystone building on lower Crescent Street, Grey Advertising and Ogilvy & Mather in the late 1970’s and working there felt like I was doing exactly what I hoped to do. Most were in hip locations downtown and often, there would be a couple of us working late into the night before spilling out into downtown Montreal. Once I understood how advertising agencies worked, I went back to Concordia University in the evening to study Marketing Management. I wanted to learn how to market myself.

In early 1980, while still building Steve Inks, I was approached by O’Keefe Printing to work with them. They felt that I could grow my small client base at their company with the equipment they owned and after a considerable amount of thought, I said yes. For the entire decade of the 1980’s, I worked as an Account Executive at first and later, as the Director of Marketing, winning multiple sales awards.

Hiring Steve Roper was the best decision our company ever made. His knowledge of the printing industry and creative marketing abilities helped elevate our company to an entirely different level.

Quite frankly, no one at our company even came close to having the natural skill that Steve possessed.

– Bill Maitland. Vice President.

This was a whirlwind period of my life. In my first year at work, I was being pulled back and forth as a few companies were offering me work or positions. Then, in the second year of working at O’Keefe, I became the Top Salesman and was given a very large increase in compensation, a car and an expense account. By 1983, I had a full time assistant and was working with most of the top Ad Agencies in Montreal; Grey Advertising, Ogilvy & Mather, J. Walter Thompson, Moscovitz & Taylor and many smaller players.

I seemed to fulfill a niche between being creative and understanding what was capable on a printing press and those skills provided me with a significant edge when face to face with a client or potential client.

I loved having access to the equipment the company had invested in and as they invested in more sophisticated equipment, I was on the front line with the business’s who required their services at the time. Having a five colour press, scanning and typographic capabilities, and an entire 70 person staff allowed me to produce as many projects as the company could handle.

In 1983, I took some time off and headed to Martinique to complete a CMAS Certification (Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques), which was absolutely wonderful and I got the idea in my head that I should start looking for clients in the Caribbean. One of my classmates had been to St. Martin and had come home with a project that they farmed out to me and that was all it took for me to gain a foothold.

Producing the project at O’Keefe allowed me to invite the client to Montreal and get to know them and when they decided to launch the first ever Tourism Magazine on the island of St. Martin, they asked me to join their team. I spoke with the owner of O’Keefe and explained that I would come back several times a year but I really wanted to do this project and Brian O’Keefe gave me his blessings and told me my job would be waiting when the project was completed.

In 1986, I relocated to and was part of the creative team which conceptualized and launched the first tourism magazine, Discover St. Martin, on the island of St. Martin in the French West Indies.

It was an incredible year as several adjacent islands were featured within the pages of the magazine, like Anguilla, Saba, St. Barths and St. Eustatius and all needed to be visited and photographed. Ad campaigns for placement in the magazine and brochures needed to be created for hotels. Virtually every hotel on any of the islands was a potential client and photo sessions on beaches were just a part of the job.

During my time on the island(s), I spent many weekends sailing around the island and twice sailed over to St. Barths with a few friends I had met. I completed my PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water Certifications. I had fun. I fell in love with sailing and the easy lifestyle.

Upon returning to Montreal, I decided to buy a 40 foot Beneteau as a ‘country house’ and lived on her in Lake Champlain for the next four summers.

Lake Champlain, New York State

In 1991, after nine very successful years at O’Keefe Printing and having built the sales of the company to over $40 Million (from $2 Million) annually, I decided to take a year off and sail the entire east coast of the United States to The Bahamas. On that voyage, I stopped in Stuart, Florida for a month to complete my Bareboat Chartering Certification and then spent several months trying to find charter clients around Grand Bahama Island, while snorkelling and scuba diving.

While in the Bahamas, the marina I had been basing myself out of in Stuart, Florida contacted me over my VHF and told me I had received a call from the director of an advertising agency in Bermuda. When I contacted them the following week, they offered me a position as a Senior Art Director to help create tourism materials for the Bermuda Department of Tourism, Crisson Jewellers and The Royal Naval Dockyard, which was something I really wanted to do just before I left Montreal.

In fact, I had applied for the position prior to leaving Montreal almost 9 months earlier and had forgotten about it. At the time, I knew I needed a change and had applied to an ad in Marketing Magazine. By that time, my work with Henry Birks & Sons and my tourism work portfolio from St. Martin helped a great deal in being chosen for the job, so serendipity kicked into my life once again.

I sold my boat and spent the next two years in Bermuda, working for Foote, Cone and Belding. I had considered sailing over and living on my boat there but the Government of Bermuda imposed a 75% duty tax to bring the boat in and I decided I had had enough of owning a boat at that point.

Bermuda

For the next two years, I was either flying in a helicopter or driving around the island, visiting hotels, beaches and tourist attractions and developing advertising campaigns and conceptual creative, which was integrated into three major tourism print publications; What To Do, Where To Stay and the Sports Guide.

Towards the end of my two years, I was asked by the Premier of Bermuda to help create a campaign for the Commission on Competitiveness on the island. The purpose of this study was to analyze the performance and the relationship between competitiveness, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth and human development on the island and he wanted to ask the entire Island to send in their ideas on how Bermuda could become more competitive in their Tourism industry.

After the campaign was released, I got this nice note from him;

“You have helped government to define its message to the community and, in so doing, members of the community have responded and agreed to lend their expertise and support to helping government realize its objectives in respect to the Commission on Competitiveness. I fully appreciate that a great deal of effort has gone into this contribution and want you to know these efforts have not gone unnoticed; indeed, they have been greatly appreciated by the Government.”

-Sir John Swan. Premier of Bermuda.

I was very satisfied with my time in Bermuda. Lots of good things happened. I learned Photoshop in 1992, (which was probably the best thing that happened as I am still using that software in 2025) and helped the Bermuda Department of Tourism create a series of promotional brochures for global distribution, re-created a brand identity for The Royal Naval Dockyard, which is still in use today some 28 years later, a testament to the value of creating a great brand identity and got a pat on the back from the Premiere.

Time to move on. I headed back to Montreal to become Creative Director at The Troppus Group.

In 1994, I returned to Montreal and became Creative Director for The Troppus Group, where I won Best in Show for Exhibition Design on three occasions and helped launch an airline, GoAir.

When I took over the position, sales were roughly $125 Million annually and when I left four years later, sales were in excess of $250 Million.

During those years, The Dicom Group wanted to expand and I created a series of wildly successful advertisements featuring real life drivers in front of their vehicles, fjording a river with the caption, ‘Wanna Build a Really Neat Business’, and placed the ads in the Globe and Mail. The campaign was highly successful, attracting more than 40 new Franchise Owners, which translated into $40 Million Dollars in investment for the group. That was a fairly quick return on their investment in my services.

Yim on our deck in Windsor, Ontario 1999

In 1998, I met Yim and my life began to shift. Our first summer together was spent taking long walks on Mount Royal to get to know each other. I met her kids and her family. We spent the summer together just getting to know each other. In the evenings after we both finished up at the Y, we would wander Sherbrooke Street in Westmount to end our day together at some bistro. By early Autumn, I knew I wanted to spend my life with her.

As fate would have it, later that same year, after being flown to Windsor for an interview, I was offered the position as Creative Director for Chrysler Canada / BBDO.

This was a very big job offer for me – Chrysler was a global business, an historic company and I remember flying home to Montreal and asking Yim over dinner if she would make the move with me. She didn’t hesitate and said Yes. If she had said no, our lives would not have been nearly as successful as they have become. Yim supported me 100% during this period , stood by my decisions which we made together and taught me what having the right woman in your life means.

In early 1999, we moved to Windsor and I began one of the most creative periods of my life, with a mandate of changing the perception of Chrysler Canada.

Although I wasn’t a car guy, being responsible for the perception of an historic company founded by Walter Chrysler in 1925 was quite the thrill.

To add a bit more fun to that, they decided to throw in the launch of the PT Cruiser.

Being asked to launch a brand new product, let alone a disruptive product like what the PT Cruiser was in 1999, was the opportunity of my career. The overall creative we developed earned us the prestigious Best in Canada Award from The Canadian Marketing Association.

While the PT Cruiser may not have been my style, I understood the potential for it to be a disruptive energy in Canada and approached it accordingly. My copywriting partner, Matt Daley played an integral role in shaping what helped us collectively launch what was and still is arguably the most successful car launch in Canadian history .

Few brands push the envelope of conventional design quite like Chrysler. When the company launched the daring and innovative PT Cruiser, it was immediately apparent that the proverbial envelope hadn’t just been pushed – it had been torn to pieces.

In the nine months leading up to the May launch, Steve Roper and Matt Daley created a campaign to attract prospects. Using simple taglines and cool images, the creative duo promoted the PT Cruiser on billboard and transit ads, in magazines and on Web banners, gradually building consumer excitement. All the advertising included a call-to-action, either a 1-877 number or Web addresses – www.waycoolcar.com – that cemented the brand’s identity.

These efforts built a strong database of “hand-raisers”, who were then targeted with a three-phase direct mail effort. The first mailing, using a large exclamation mark, emphasized the fun aspect of the car. The second included exclusive information to keep prospects interested, and the third – which included a PT Cruiser key ring – invited customers to take a test drive. The key was to make recipients feel as if they were part of something exclusive and special.

The program attracted the right target – young, urban and hip –  giving the brand a certain cachet with a traditionally atypical Chrysler audience and rightfully earned them a Gold Award as Best in Canada’.

– The Canadian Marketing Association

The freedom the agency gave us helped produce the best work of my career and I was awarded Best in Canada by the Canadian Marketing Association.

but…

For the sake of this timeline, I have to add that just prior to joining BBDO, Yim and I had taken a vacation to Belize, where I had decided to purchase 2 acres of oceanfront property on a whim, which added a distraction I was compelled to follow through with over the next couple of years.

We made a lot of friends in Windsor over a two year period but our life had other plans for us. During our first year in Windsor, I introduced Yim to scuba diving and when I completed my Divemaster Certification in Lake Eerie, Yim completed her Open Water certification.

Our little eco property in Belize, Ocean’s Edge.

By early 2000, Yim and I had decided to build our own small eco-resort and began designing the landscaping of the property and architectural plans for our first two houses. Over the next year, we built a website and began taking pre-bookings for the January 2002. By the time we had relocated to Belize, we had the houses booked for a full year. In fact, that was how we built the house as the bank lent me the money against bookings.

In 2001, I resigned from Chrysler, completed my PADI Instructors Certification in Victoria, BC and we jumped into our Isuzu Trooper and drove down to Belize.

However, luck was not on our side as a hurricane tore through southern Belize weeks before we were set to head down after having sold most of our furniture. Our roof was peeled back and the property was a mess when we arrived in Belize.

This evolved into our managing and marketing The Inn At Roberts Grove in Belize, where Yim took over as General Manager and I ran the Marina and Dive Operations. I spent the next three years teaching scuba diving and building our own beachfront property and was fortunate enough to lead the Board of Directors for the World Wildlife Fund on expeditions twice. My Bareboat Chartering Certification came in handy as Robert’s Grove owned six boats and I was able to also captain the boats regularly. I think it was this period of my life that changed me the most. It was certainly the most fun part of any ‘job’ I had ever had.

In 2001, Yim was voted as the Top Five Star Resort Manager in Belize and before we left Belize, was being actively pursued by Francis Ford Coppola to run his new resort.

In 2005, Yim and I made the decision to leave Belize for a variety of reasons and returned to Montreal.

I spent the next year working with Doctors Without Borders, as well as several other non-profit organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, Medic Alert and CUSO.

In 2006, we chose to move back to Victoria, BC and I founded The Steve Roper Group, and while Yim went on to work as the Executive Administrator for the Ministry of the Environment for a decade, I went on to develop a long list of conservation and tourism oriented clientele.

I consider myself to have evolved into a Creative Director by my mid-forties. A Creative Director is responsible for everything – the big picture, leading graphic designers, copywriters, illustrators, photographers and production professionals and often work in tandem with marketing teams but I did both, providing guidance, creative direction and marketing strategy.

For the last 15 years of my career, I concentrated on creating websites and other digital content.

One of my most successful projects during this period was Craigdarroch Castle, where, over an eight year period, we transformed the identity, perception & digital presence of the Canadian National Historic Site.

When we began work, their website, which was virtually a landing page, received fewer than 4,000 visits annually. Over the next eight years, we diligently evolved and fine-tuned the website and branding.

In 2014, visitation to the website exceeded 400,000 visitors annually!

My favourite list of clients has included King Brothers in Victoria (with whom I am still working as of 2025), Chrysler Canada, Craigdarroch Castle, The Marine Megafauna Foundation in Mozambique, The Town of Collingwood, Ontario, Doctors Without Borders, The Bermuda Department of Tourism, The St. Martin Department of Tourism, Henry Birks & Sons, IBM Canada, The Ogden Point Enhancement Society in Victoria, BC, O’Keefe Printing in Montreal, Swan Lake Nature Conservancy in Victoria, BC, The Port Angeles Department of Tourism, Two if by Sea in the BVI, Angel Solutions in Victoria and Andrea Marshall, Queen of the Mantas and National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

In late 2019, Yim and I decided that it was time for me to retire and I moved away from my business.

In looking back, having had the opportunities that I had and the chances that I took have made for a well lived life, coupled with lots of travel, a year long sailing adventure aboard Blue Grace and building our little eco-resort property, Ocean’s Edge in Belize but our life is better today than it was during my working years.

2025 has arrived and we are well retired in the small community of Collingwood on the shores of Georgian Bay. I am now more interested in our health, nutrition, family and travel. We have adopted a plant based diet and each enjoy daily exercise regimes. I run 12 – 15 K every morning, then go to the gym for strength training while Yim enjoys Ballet, strength training and Burlesque classes while also teaching Zumba. I am becoming quite a good cook. We are active.

Life continues…

Georgian Hills above our home in southern Georgian Bay.

We still plan to travel extensively and I have integrated our travels and stories into this website and will continue to write about our travels.

Life, for me, has become much more about the quality of life Yim and I share rather than making more money… and that’s taken far too long for me to learn but learn I have and I look forward to the next phase of our lives.

I am grateful.