The story of John Perry, our Chief Design Officer, embodies one of the most critical skills emergency professionals can possess: creativity. 

Born in England and raised in Canada, Perry’s story is told across three continents in an ever-shifting environment. From commanding armoured reconnaissance groups in South Africa to getting his pilot’s license in the United States, Perry’s life has been far from stationary. 

Despite his many walks of life, he considers himself a designer first. Alongside his military and aviation careers, he’s operated John Perry Designs, his solo design company, since 1983. According to Perry, his background in design is an integral part of his current work with Ally Emergency Management. 

“I’m a designer. I have soldiered, I’ve piloted aircraft, I do emergency planning, but I am a designer,” said Perry. “Designing of course is part of planning; so whether I’m designing websites or designing exercises, designer [is] just how my mind is wired.”

In 1994, Perry left South Africa and moved to Vancouver. He worked for an interior design company on West Cordova, as well as joined the British Columbia Regiment in the army reserve. There, he met Ally’s soon-to-be founder, Paul Ursich, while they worked together at the brigade headquarters. 

The two quickly became friends; according to Perry, this was one of the main reasons he joined Ally Emergency Management as CDO in 2014. Their first major contract together was given to them by FortisBC, and they’ve worked together since then.

“[Ursich] said ‘I’ve got this job, can you help me with it? It’s something to do with the emergency management with Fortis.’ So I did, and from there that was it. We just marched along, he and I,” said Perry. “I’ve always got along well with [Paul], we can always laugh, but we can address serious things. I’m too old to go to war now, but back then I would have said ‘yeah, I would go to war with him.

As CDO, Perry pours his passion for design into the content he creates for Ally. For him, it’s more than just a job to be done, it’s an opportunity to create something new, and to breathe life into the work he creates.

“Right from the beginning when you sow the seeds, discuss ideas and different approaches, people learn something, and you feel like you’re contributing something. It’s not just an inanimate, static object I created… this is something that’s actually benefiting people,” said Perry. “It just appeals to my sense of creativity, and as some people will attest, I can get very creative when I create chaos. It’s not just a bland, straight out of the textbook type of project, let’s throw a bit of colour into this thing.”