Do you know an inspiring Montrealer? Submit their application!

Back

Karel Velan

1918-2017
Officer
2017

Renowned inventor, engineer and businessman Karel Velan is known for his exceptional social involvement. His philanthropic and humanitarian actions are on the same scale as the industrial empire he created, and he has invested in these two spheres with passion, determination and generosity. 

In 1949, Karel Velan fled communist rule in Czechoslovakia and settled in Montréal with his family. A mechanical engineer by trade, in the early 1950s he built an industrial valve company that grew rapidly, supported by many patents. One of his inventions was the very first bimetallic steam trap.

Soon Velan Inc.’s clients included institutions as prestigious as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the US Marine. Today, the company employs some 2,000 people in several sites around the world, including two in Montréal. It is stock-listed and posts annual earnings of nearly half a billion dollars.

Karel Velan has been supporting many different organizations for many years, including La rue des femmes, and his commitment has led to the creation of two shelters for homeless women, Maison Olga, in 2002, and Maison Jacqueline, in 2015. He also supports Camp Papillon, a summer camp for disabled children, and he made an extremely generous donation to the McGill University Health Centre Best Care for Life campaign. In the past, Karel Velan also provided significant support for the creation of a First Nations community centre in Kanesatake. He has been very active with charitable and health care organizations in the Czech Republic as well.

As an astrophysics buff, he financed the Velan Cosmolab at Mont-Mégantic as well as the Velan Astronomic Pavilion in Mont-Tremblant. He has also published two works on astronomy, The Multi-Universe Cosmos: The First Complete Story of the Origin of the Universe (1992) and The Birth and History of the Cosmos (2000), which have been translated in French, Spanish and Chinese.

Karel Velan has received many honours and prestigious awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, in 1996, the Valve World Fellow, in 2006, the Telus Grand Prix humaniste award, in 2004, the Engineers Canada Gold Medal award, in 2015, and the Grand Prix d’excellence from the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, in 2014, to name just a few.

Karel Velan instituted the Montréal Rotary Club Velan award in 1981 to honour a Canadian for exceptional humanitarian work abroad. He was appointed a knight of the Ordre national du Québec in 2005.

The picture and biographical information appearing on this page were current at the time this person was admitted to the Ordre de Montréal.