Challenge
Two lives, one story—and the whole story
When Irv and Dianne Kipnes approached Echo, they were clear on what they didn’t want.
They didn’t want a puff piece. They didn’t want a victory lap. They didn’t even want a public-facing book.
What they wanted was a privately published, honestly told record of two remarkable lives, both deeply personal and broadly civic. A book for family, friends, collaborators, and the institutions their work has helped shape.
But their story posed an unusual challenge.
Irv had been a liquor magnate and real estate entrepreneur.
Dianne was a private counsellor and lifelong champion of mental wellness. Together, their philanthropic influence had reshaped health care, the arts, and education across Alberta.
Their lives were full of milestones. But what mattered more was the chemistry between them, and their shared ability to push through challenges, often side by side, sometimes from very different places.
The challenge was to tell that story not as two timelines crammed into one book, but as a single narrative of mutual momentum.
And to do it without smoothing the rough edges.
As Irv put it early in the process, “I want to tell the good and the bad,” including his early losses such as the downfall of North West Trust. Setting the record straight wasn’t just permissible. It was necessary.
Solution
A memoir grounded in complexity and care
The final book, The Evolution of a Happening: The Lives and Works of Irv & Dianne Kipnes, takes its title from a remark Irv made during one of many interviews: “Virtually everything in my life has been the evolution of a happening. In other words, you see an opportunity and you try to test whether it makes sense or not, or if you get scared off or not.”
That spirit — reactive but deliberate, restless but principled — guides the book’s shape.
Echo worked closely with Irv and Dianne over many months to craft a manuscript that opened, not with their biggest wins, but with a scene that distilled the tension at the heart of their story: a 20th anniversary speech by Dianne in which she gently, movingly, and hilariously laid bare the improbable force of their union.
That speech set the tone. This would not be a book of airbrushed accomplishments. It would be about the work — personal, professional, and philanthropic — that goes into building something that lasts.
From that opening, the book moves fluidly through:
- Irv’s trajectory as an entrepreneur, including setbacks and reinventions
- Dianne’s work in psychotherapy, and her influence as a systems thinker and wellness advocate
- Their shared ventures in the arts, medicine, veterans’ affairs, and education
- And the ways in which each supported — and sometimes challenged — the other to lead with purpose
Photographs and clippings are interspersed throughout, offering a visual companion to the story, while the design itself reflects the couple’s personalities: clean, confident, and elegant in its restraint.
Result
A portrait of partnership, built to endure
The book was published in a short private run, gifted to friends, family, and the institutions closest to their lives. It was a story for the people who lived it and for those who will carry it forward.
What readers found in the book was not a single narrative arc, but a conversation between two full lives: distinct, accomplished, and sometimes oppositional, but always moving forward together.
It captured:
- The business vision of Irv
- The emotional intelligence of Dianne
- And the mutual investment in community that bound them across decades
For those in their circle, it became more than a keepsake. It was a reflection on the nature of commitment … to work, to city, to craft, to each other.
And by refusing to simplify their story, the Kipneses made room for something rarer: recognition.
This is how it really happens.
One more cool thing ...
The book begins with a speech, not a triumph
The book opens not on a podium, but in a ballroom. It’s April 2008, and Dianne is standing in front of friends and family, not to accept an honour but to offer an apology.
“I wish I could give this speech without reading it,” she says, reading from a notecard. Then she goes on to explain — wryly, movingly, honestly — what 20 years of marriage to Irv has looked like.
It’s funny. It’s heartfelt. And it’s the perfect start to a story that refuses to pretend the road was easy.
Because what comes next is not mythology. It’s memory, with all its nuance intact.
Want to tell a life story that respects the complexity?
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