Mr. Barber, best-known for this twenty-three year stewardship of Slocan Forest Products Ltd., had been involved in all levels of British Columbia’s forestry industry for nearly sixty years. He founded Slocan in 1978, and by the time he retired in February, 2002, it had become one of the leading lumber producers in North America.

Mr. Barber’s commitment to the people of British Columbia is marked by his endowment of a forestry research chair and forestry laboratory at the University of Northern British Columbia, the establishment of a diabetes research chair at the University of British Columbia, the Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory at Vancouver Hospital (in partnership with the University of British Columbia), and most recently he was the principal donor for the new Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia and a donor at UBC Okanagan. Irving K. Barber was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2003.