Al Hildebrandt and the 27-Year Overnight Success

Al Hildebrandt has a useful correction for anyone tempted to call his business career an overnight success: it took 27 years. The joke makes the journey sound almost efficient. His wife, Irene, supplies the sequel. Among her husband’s abilities, she observed, “retirement isn’t one of them.” Between those two assessments sits a working portrait of the QHR founder: prepared to spend years on something, then rather reluctant to stop.

He retired as QHR’s chief executive in June 2015. By then, the company had more than 200 employees in Canada and the United States. Its succession announcement named the people who would carry the business forward. There was a transition arrangement, a timetable, and a public expression of affection for the team. The administrative requirements of retirement were thoroughly attended to. The question of what Hildebrandt would do with himself proved less easily filed.

The following years brought fundraising, foundation work, civic recognition and another commercial venture. A founder who had spent his working life organizing people and resources continued organizing people and resources. The destination changed. The appetite for a project survived.

A business begins with the roster

Hildebrandt’s account of QHR’s beginnings starts in 1997, with work he already understood: payroll, human resources and staff scheduling. These are the systems people notice most when they fail. A misplaced shift or a muddled pay run can make an organization’s grand ambitions feel rather distant. He saw a fragmented software market and an opportunity to bring connected administrative functions together.

His explanation of the workflow followed an employee’s journey: recruitment, instructions about when and where to work, payment, and the movement of information into finance. There was a practical sequence to it. His opening was in the gaps between those steps. The idea depended on knowing the work well enough to recognize where existing products made it unnecessarily difficult.

QHR grew through acquisitions as well as sales. By the summer of 2012, it had completed a dozen acquisitions in nine years. For a founder, buying a company adds people, products and obligations alongside the opportunity. The arithmetic can be quick; getting the resulting organization to work takes longer. Hildebrandt’s original focus on connected operations provided a useful starting discipline.

The bell rang in Toronto

In January 2014, Hildebrandt received the 2013 TSXV Tech Executive of the Year award at the Cantech Letter Awards in Toronto. The next morning, January 17, he joined the other winners to ring the opening bell at the Toronto Stock Exchange. There are less conspicuous ways to begin a workday. After years of building a company in Kelowna, this one came with a bell.

The recognition had a particular business argument behind it. QHR’s recurring revenue accounted for more than 75 percent of its revenue rate at the time. Repeat income mattered because software businesses still have salaries and development bills to pay between new contracts. A continuing customer relationship gave the enterprise a different footing from a succession of isolated sales.

When the retirement plan arrived the following January, it acknowledged both the founder and the organization around him. Michael Checkley, Michael Dingle and Jerry Diener were identified as leaders taking on functional responsibilities. Checkley’s appointment as president and CEO was announced in June 2015. The company continued, with another person in the chair.

That distinction matters in a founder’s story. A business has to become something other people can run. Hildebrandt’s departure was an event in QHR’s life, rather than its ending. The company was sold in 2016, after he had stepped down. In his later account, that sale also gave his family greater room to support causes they cared about.

His work also crossed into provincial technology policy. In 2004, Hildebrandt was named among new members of British Columbia’s Premier’s Technology Council, identified as the founder of Total Care Technologies and QHR Technologies. It placed him among business and technology figures advising on the province’s direction. The appointment added another setting in which his experience as an operator could be brought into a wider conversation.

There had been a more local example in 2000. Kelowna council records list a supporting letter from Hildebrandt, then identified as CEO of Achievers Choice Technologies, concerning a proposed development intended to provide infrastructure for the technology industry. The record is a small one: a name, a role and a letter of support. It shows his involvement in the city’s technology setting beyond QHR itself.

The university on the other side of the idea

QHR was one expression of Hildebrandt’s interest in the Okanagan’s prospects. Education was another. In 1997, the same year he places the beginning of his original business, U-2000 formed to advocate for a university in the region. Hildebrandt identifies his role as an early public voice in that campaign. UBC Okanagan opened in 2005.

A regional university and a software company operate on different calendars, but both require people to commit before the result is visible. A campaign has meetings before it has classrooms. A young company has payroll before it has much certainty. Hildebrandt’s involvement in both gives his career a distinctly local dimension: he was building a business while also arguing for an institution in its surrounding region.

In 2021, UBC Okanagan awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws. The university recognized a technology entrepreneur with a record of community and humanitarian service. The honorary degree sits alongside his business award without duplicating it. One marked executive work. The other recognized contributions that extended beyond the company.

Giving with an invitation attached

Al and Irene married in 1974, and charitable involvement was part of their family life long before his retirement. Their later giving had more resources behind it, but it also carried an organizing habit: encourage someone else to join in. Matching donations made a contribution an invitation. Another donor could see their own gift draw additional money into a project.

In November 2015, the couple gave $100,000 in securities to Cops for Kids. Hildebrandt had worked as a police officer in the 1970s, giving the connection a personal history. The gift arrived within months of his retirement. Whatever else the new phase of life would involve, it was already producing commitments rather larger than a leisurely diary entry.

By 2017, Al and Irene were involved in promoting World Vision’s Global 6K for Water in Kelowna. More than 680 people participated, raising over $250,000. The event gave an international cause a local gathering point. Walking, running or wheeling six kilometres was an action people could take together, with a result measured beyond the finish line.

Hildebrandt’s involvement extended to examining the organizations receiving support. He reviewed information about World Vision before making larger commitments. It was a familiar business question applied to giving: could the organization deliver? The couple’s international support included microfinance in Guatemala and child protection projects in Cambodia and China.

In 2019, Hildebrandt volunteered more than 2,000 hours across a variety of causes. Kelowna named him its Citizen of the Year for that year, presenting the award in 2020. Money is the more visible part of philanthropy; hours leave fewer photogenic traces. Two thousand of them make the word “retirement” sound increasingly like a technicality.

“There's no secret weapon that will solve the problems.”

Al Hildebrandt · 2022 conversation

At home, a different management arrangement

His public life leaves room for a domestic qualification. Hildebrandt has described himself as outwardly assertive in business, while giving Irene credit for managing home and family life. That admission lends some weight to her assessment of his retirement skills. She has had ample opportunity to observe the candidate.

His ambitions have also included travel: a journey through at least ten countries over six to eight weeks, preferably in business class. Even the holiday wish had a scope and a timetable. The desire to see more of the world sat comfortably beside his long attachment to the Okanagan. He and Irene moved to the area in January 1981, settling on the west side of the lake.

When asked about achievement, he included the employment opportunities his businesses had created for hundreds of people. It is a revealing choice of measure. A founder’s results can be counted in transactions, but a workplace also means household budgets, colleagues and families. Hildebrandt’s answer made room for those consequences.

Another project on Harvey Avenue

In 2023, Hildebrandt bought the property now housing the Kelowna Events Centre on Harvey Avenue. An initial mixed-use residential and commercial concept gave way to a different proposal as market conditions changed. In October 2025, as president of Impact UPstream Ventures, he outlined plans for a conference centre and hotel.

The proposal called for roughly 80,000 square feet of conference space and a 300-room hotel. It was a plan seeking funding and support, with further study envisaged. Its scale was an aspiration, rather than a completed addition to the city. The change of direction nevertheless showed a founder returning to a familiar exercise: identify an opening, assemble a proposal, and persuade others to participate.

Property ownership has also brought a public dispute. In March 2026, Hildebrandt filed a defamation claim against former tenant John Perks, broadcaster Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson and Sheppard Ministries Society over statements following an eviction at the venue. Thompson publicly disputed the lawsuit and said she would fight it. The allegations were unproven when reported.

That is part of the later chapter, alongside the giving and recognition. In February 2025, West Kelowna had presented Hildebrandt with the King Charles III Coronation Medal for community service. A medal, a development proposal and a court claim make for a crowded retirement. Irene’s brief review continues to hold up.