A degree 30 years in the making

Dan Morris poses in front of Hatley Castle

University didn’t stick for Dan Morris the first time he enrolled nor even the second time. But the third time — 30 years, one wife, three children and half a dozen professions and businesses after his initial foray into post-secondary education — he was ready, willing and motivated.

For his efforts, Morris has earned a Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management, and a Founders’ Award for exemplifying the qualities of leadership, sustainability and personal development, at Royal Roads University.

And he posted a message of encouragement on Facebook for others, like him, who want to try something new, even later in life. He wrote, in part:

“It’s hard to believe that within the next two weeks, it will all be over! 30 years after I first started post-secondary education, I will have finally completed a bachelor’s degree.

“This post is to encourage you to see if there is something you always wanted to do but haven’t gotten around to yet. Go out there and do it!

The story behind that post is three decades in the making.

Morris said he was top of his Grade 12 class at the private boarding school he attended in Manitoba and he enrolled at the University of Victoria out of high school to study computer engineering but “couldn’t handle being broke and at school all the time.”

He headed back to Nanaimo and worked construction, then tried a second run at UVic a year later. But it didn’t work out.

After a second return to construction work, he bought a business that used trained Harris’s hawks to control seagulls around landfills, eventually expanding the business off Vancouver Island and into BC’s Lower Mainland. It was the first of several entrepreneurial ventures that also included working in information technology selling bus bench advertising and residential real estate, which he has been doing the last 12 years.

“I’ve always been successful in whatever business I’ve run but there’s always been that nagging feeling behind that there was something I was missing out on, but I didn’t know what that was,” he says, noting that he’d done other schooling for IT, was constantly reading books and always on the lookout for courses he could take.

The challenge was finding something that suited him and allowed him to meet his work and family obligations.

“For many years, I was looking for something like Royal Roads has,” he says, adding, “It got to the point that I thought I could handle it.”

Morris says he chose RRU’s entrepreneurial BCom to supplement his own experience as a business owner, where he’d largely learned on the job and without academic or mentorship support.

Without the support and encouragement of his wife, Chelli Morris, he says he couldn’t have completed his degree. Now, his next challenge is to find enough tickets for her, their three children — 15, 13 and 10 years of age — and his mom at the Nov. 18 convocation ceremony.

After thanking his spouse in his Facebook post — “I’m very blessed to have you in my life” —he ended with a brief inspirational message for others who might find themselves stuck in a rut, writing: “For the rest of you… what have you always wanted to do? I’ll cheer you on as you pursue it!”


We always want to hear stories about the people, programs and places that are the Royal Roads experience. Share yours via the RRU Story Exchange and it could be featured on our web site and social media.