About Don Getty
Donald Ross Getty (August 30, 1933 – February 26, 2016) was a Canadian athlete, businessman, and politician who served as the 11th premier of Alberta between 1985 and 1992. Before entering politics, Getty had been a quarterback for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. He passed for more than eight thousand yards over his ten-year career. A member of the Progressive Conservatives, he served as Energy Minister and Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister in the government of Peter Lougheed before leaving politics for the private sector in 1979. He returned to politics six years later to enter the Progressive Conservative leadership contest resulting from Lougheed's retirement. He defeated two other candidates, and became Premier November 1, 1985. As Premier, Getty was faced with an economic slowdown and falling energy prices, which hit Alberta's petroleum-dominated economy hard. Faced with mounting government deficits and increasing unemployment, he cut social spending and intervened with government money to prevent businesses from failing. Several of these interventions backfired in high-profile fashion, failing at their intended objective and costing scarce public funds as well. While some analysts argue that Getty's fiscal program laid the groundwork for Ralph Klein's later balancing of the provincial budget, on Getty's departure from office the government's debt had reached $11 billion, setting the stage for his successor to characterize the Getty years as an era of wasteful and excessive spending. His efforts at strengthening Alberta's presence in Canada initially appeared more successful, as he won the agreement of Canada's other first ministers in including elements of Senate reform in the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, but these efforts came to naught when both accords were rejected—the second by the Canadian public, including a majority of Albertans. Getty was also facing political problems within Alberta, including a defeat in his home riding of Edmonton-Whitemud in the 1989 election (leading to a successful by-election in Stettler, vacated by a PC MLA) and leadership machinations from some of his own ministers. In light of this, he resigned the Premiership in 1992. The same year, Getty was put on the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Fame. He quarterbacked the Western Ontario Mustangs to Eastern Collegiate Union Championships in 1954 and 1955, and was awarded the Claude Brown Memorial Trophy as the outstanding athlete at UWO in 1955. In 1964 he founded his own company, Baldonnel Oil and Gas Company, before entering the world of finance as a partner with Doherty, Roadhouse, and McCuaig investments in 1967. After graduating, Getty enrolled to study business administration at the University of Western Ontario, where he became a football star and a member of The Kappa Alpha Society.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.