He said his grandfather on his mother’s side helped build the sandstone legislature just after the turn of the 20th century.
“He was a labourer. He probably didn’t even speak English,” said Mr. Olson, who said he can’t walk the halls of the legislature, look at the pictures of those who came before, and not think of him.
“As an immigrant a hundred years ago I wonder if he thought about what his grandchildren would be doing all these years later.”
The promotion of Olson, 57, was among a number of changes announced by Mr. Stelmach.
Greg Weadick, the junior minister in advanced education, was promoted to replace Doug Horner as a minister of the department.
They are to be sworn in Friday morning at Government House in Edmonton.
Mr. Olson was born and raised in Camrose, 70 kilometres southeast of Edmonton and was elected to represent the riding of Wetaskiwin-Camrose in the March 2008 general election.
His family came from Norway. His grandmother came to North America in 1912 as a steerage passenger on a steamship from Liverpool, England, where the now famous White Star Line was running boats. “She missed (sailing on) the Titanic by two weeks,” he said.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Olson focused mainly on wills, estate and business planning before catching the political bug a decade ago. He ran for the federal Progressive Conservatives in the Crowfoot riding but lost in the 2000 general election campaign.
Before politics, he made a name supporting amateur sports.
Growing up, he was a pitcher in a “good ol’ country hardball” league. He lived on a wicked, tailing fastball, but when his arm went south, he relied more on the breaking stuff – curveballs and the like – and eventually became a junkballer, tossing the odd knuckle pitch.
In 1999 he won the Bill Chmiliar Award of Merit, Alberta’s top individual award in baseball, for creating a minor league baseball program in the tiny hamlet of Armena.
With the help of friends, he created tiers, programs and first-class ball diamonds for the kids to play, resuscitating a sport that been losing ground to fastball, softball, and slo-pitch.
“At its height we had 150 kids in our baseball program from Camrose and all over the place,” he said. “We had 10 teams and we were very competitive in provincials.”
Olson was also one of the leading organizers behind the annual Viking Cup International hockey tournament. He admits when baseball comes on TV he supports the Chicago White Sox but his favourite hat is from the University of Minnesota hockey team.
He and wife Mardell have three grown children and two grandchildren.
Mr. Olsen said he was at home Wednesday when he got the call from Mr. Stelmach and immediately said yes. He’ll spend the next few days getting up to speed with department officials.
Also Thursday, Mr. Stelmach promoted Red Deer backbencher Cal Dallas to take over from Doug Griffiths as the junior finance minister.
The jobs came open when four members of Mr. Stelmach’s team resigned to run in the upcoming party race to replace him as leader and premier.
Mr. Stelmach announced in January he will not run in the next election and will step down by the fall. The party vote is expected in September.
The four announced candidates are former finance minister Ted Morton, Mr. Horner, Mr. Griffiths and Ms. Redford.
Mr. Stelmach asked all cabinet members to resign if they wanted to run so there would be no perception they were using cabinet perks to advance their leadership campaigns.
Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove has assumed Mr. Morton’s duties and will deliver the 2011-12 budget next Thursday.
