Ralph Sultan

This month we would like to introduce you to Ralph Sultan, who has been a person who has shown a great deal of interest in Swedish Heritage in BC. Ralph Sultan was born in Vancouver in 1933 to Swedish immigrants.

His father, born in 1899, came from Gräshult near Jönköping in Småland and emigrated to Canada at 18 years of age. Ralph’s mother also emigrated at the age of 18 joining a brother near Revelstoke. She came from a small village outside Umeå. Ralph’s paternal grandfather was a soldier and the name Sultan is a name given when soldiers joined the armed forces. A lot of people in Sweden had names like Hansson and Svensson and it created difficulties in the army when a lot of men had the same name so they solved this by giving them new names.

Ralph grew up in Mount Pleasant in a three room house with 8 children. His father had a house painting business where the whole family worked and helped out. Ralph’s parents belonged to and supported the First Swedish Lutheran Church on Princess and Pender streets. The Church was central to all their social life, that was where their friends were.

Ralph went to UBC and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering. He went to Harvard business school where he eventually got 3 university degrees and became a professor in economics. He stayed at Harvard for 15 years with his family. While at Harvard as a student he was chosen to go with 6 other students to Sweden by the invitation of Marcus Wallenberg. They went in 1959 for 6 months to work in some of his industries. Ralph worked at Atlas Copco. This was his first time in his parents’ home country and he brought his mother to Sweden for a visit during this time.

Ralph came back to Canada and worked for many years as Chief Economist for the Royal Bank and later owned a mine. Ralph’s wife died in 2001 and that is when he decided to go into politics, He became a MLA for Capilano-West Vancouver riding and held that seat until 2021 when he retired. Ralph Sultan is very proud of his Swedish heritage and says that from his parents he learned to work very hard which has stood him in good stead throughout his life. He also found that on the whole Swedish people in general have a good reputation worldwide for being hard working and honest and feels it helped him in his career.

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