ICBA mourns the passing of Life Member and former Board Chair Theodore “Fin” Finlay Levick, who died peacefully at home on September 21, 2025, at the age of 92, with his wife Margaret by his side. A proud Kootenay son, Fin was born in Nelson on April 29, 1933, and made his life in Trail’s Shavers Bench community.
Fin belonged to that founding generation of open shop builders who helped create ICBA and shape its character. In our early years — lean on resources but strong in conviction — Fin showed up, pitched in, and led. He served on ICBA’s executive, ultimately chairing the Board, and later received Life Membership in recognition of his decades of service.
Colleagues remember Fin as steady, good-humoured, and game for just about anything if it helped the association. At those scrappy conventions of the 1970s and ’80s, he backed the auctions that kept ICBA afloat; in one legendary moment, even “Fin Levick’s beard” became a fundraising item — a sacrifice that matched the seriousness of the cause.
He was also known for getting people where they needed to be — sometimes literally. Fin, an accomplished pilot, was often pressed into service as the group’s regular pilot on many trips around B.C. He was always calm under pressure, practical, and determined to keep ICBA moving forward.
Beyond titles and tall tales, Fin represented the best of our industry’s ethos: community-minded, entrepreneurial, and stubbornly optimistic about what skilled people can build together. The Kootenays — Trail especially — shaped him, and in turn he helped shape an association that grew from a handful of risk-takers into Canada’s largest construction organization.
To Margaret and the Levick family, and to Fin’s many friends and colleagues in the Kootenays and across B.C., we offer our deepest condolences and gratitude. ICBA stands a little taller because Fin Levick spent his life standing up for open shop builders and the communities they serve.
