Last Minute - The Lethbridge Journal

Dodic’s experience benefits city
By Bill Axtell
For the Lethbridge Journal
It’s obvious that everything in his
more than five decades of life has
perfectly prepared him for the highprofile
position he has engaged since
2010.
Rajko Dodic, whose roots reach
across the ocean to Eastern Europe,
and who served two terms as alderman
before his election as Mayor
two years ago, has emerged from
his Lethbridge upbringing and from
his private law practice to impart
his own style of contemporary and
unique leadership to meet the city’s
constantly-changing needs of today.
Yet, Mayor Dodic is quick to pass
along the credit to others. “Unless
we have an administration extremely
competent and effective, we won’t
have the ability to get where we need
to go,” he says, giving due credit to
the city’s team of qualified professionals.
Dodic’s leadership style is fundamentally
collaborative. He excels in
bringing diverse groups together to
pursue common goals, which arises
from his background in law practice,
a common successful technique in
that field.
While Mayor Dodic may have been
born with gifts that are naturally
suited for leadership, much of his
ability has come from his experience,
training and development. For example,
he says “it’s difficult to attract
people with business backgrounds
to run for civic office, because of the
time commitments involved, as well
as the rates of pay being quite low.
Therefore, we rarely have people on
Council with corporate or major
business experience.”
In contrast, Dodic, himself, gained a
substantial measure of business experience
due to the size of his former
law firm, Dodic, Toone, Maclean,
which he started along with two other
lawyers in 1993.
“we saved a photograph of me, wearing
a baby bonnet, sitting on a large rock
in a field”
In Lethbridge, Dodic’s father found
work at the farm operated by the Boras
family; his mom worked in a canning
factory, which processed locally
grown produce. As a child, Dodic
remembers earning spending money
by picking up scrap metal and selling
it to Varzari Salvage for 25 cents.
His first close-up exposure to an
elected civic politician occurred
when Dodic enrolled at St. Basil’s
Elementary School, where his principal,
Steve Vaselenak, served for a
number of years in public office in
Lethbridge.
Moving to Catholic Central High
School for grades 9 to 12, Dodic
graduated in 1970 and enrolled at the
University of Lethbridge.
Dodic explains that he interrupted
his studies at U of L at various points
to travel and to “find myself,” he says,
describing how he first traveled to
the Yukon, then later tried to hitchhike
across Canada, but, after 10 days
of travel, only made it to Kenora,
Ont., “because of the difficulty of getting
rides.” Another time, he moved
to Vancouver for a short while.
“Yet,” he says, “these periods gave me
a life-long love of travel.”
Returning to Lethbridge in 1977, he
made a concerted effort to attend
university full time. He graduated
in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts and
Science degree. Because he excelled
in the field, he was offered a National
Research Council scholarship for a
graduate degree program at the University
of Western Ontario in London,
Ont.
Dodic surprised everyone by turning
down the scholarship and announcing
his plans to instead go to the
University of Alberta in Edmonton
to enroll in law school.
“Besides the fact that the law interested
me,” he says, “I thought that
a law degree was fairly portable
throughout Canada.”
“The number of employees, the on-going need for recruitment and hiring as we grew,
as well as the accounting and tax monitoring procedures for a firm all contributed to an
education in business operations, beyond the basic law practice. Such experience in business
has been helpful in understanding the key issues of the operations of the numerous
enterprises of the city,” he says.
“Moreover,” he continues, “legal training has proved beneficial because lots of our issues
have a legal component. Besides lots of reading, I have found it never has become an
onerous task to go through the large volume of material we deal with every week because
of having a legal background.”
Dodic was born in the former Yugoslavia. Dodic’s father, who had been captured by the
German army and imprisoned in a POW camp, had - after the war - moved his wife and
toddler son, Rajko, to Italy. There, they lived in a relocation camp for 18 months, while
arranging for immigration to Canada. Dodic’s father believed the family could start a
better life there.
“Although I have no memory of Yugoslavia,” he muses, “we saved a photograph of me,
wearing a baby bonnet, sitting on a large rock in a field with the barracks in Italy in the
background.”
Sailing to Canada in 1957, Dodic’s family landed at the historical Pier 21 in Halifax, made
famous for its thousands of immigrations between 1928 and 1972. Immediately, the family
relocated to Lethbridge, where he grew up and received all his schooling.
Upon graduation from the U of A with a law degree in 1981, Dodic fulfilled his plan to
return to Lethbridge where he articled with the former firm, Maxwell, Larson & Co.
“I always knew I wanted to return to Lethbridge to establish my career here,” he comments.
“Even though I had not maintained close connections with high school friends, as
others did, I remained close to my parents and my sister here.”
Dodic joined Toone and Maclean in opening their new law firm in 1993. A short time
later, Brad Stephenson joined them in the practice.
“We began with only one desk and one support staff,” he says, recalling that the young
lawyers “took turns using the one desk when a client came in.”
Dodic met his wife, Amy, a local artist, in Lethbridge, marrying her almost 25 years ago.
They raised two children, now grown.
Sometime before the civic election of 2004, Dodic’s friend, Ed Rice, a senior lawyer who
had served on city council during the 1960s, discussed the idea of running for Alderman
with him. While he was considering a run for council, Rice picked up a nomination package
for Dodic.
After winning a seat in 2004, Dodic began to wind down his law practice.
“I still spend one to two hours a week on my six or so remaining cases, but I probably
won’t need to renew my license again after this year,” he says.
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LETHBRIDGE JOURNAL • WEEK OF MAY 11, 2012 • www.lethbridgejournal.ca