Theodore Arthur “Ted” Szilva was born on December 11, 1934, and died on March 10, 2016.
He was a businessman in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Ted was best known for creating the city’s “Big Nickel” landmark.
He was born and raised in the old city of Sudbury.
Ted Szilva proposed the Big Nickel monument in 1963 when he was a 28-year-old firefighter.
Then it became one of Sudbury’s most recognizable features, and Szilva owned both the monument and the surrounding park area until 1981.
He was an active Roman Catholic.
In the 1980s, Ted also co-managed a successful private lottery named “Pot `O’ Gold” that provided funding for Ontario’s Catholic schools.
In 1984, when the provincial government of Bill Davis extended full funding to Catholic education, Ted Szilva helped wind down the lottery and re-establish it as a charity fund.
Critics have suggested that Davis’s decision to fund Catholic schools was predicated, in part, on his government’s desire to re-establish control over the lottery sector.
Ted continued to co-manage the charity fund into to year 2000s.
Szilva was a long term member of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Ontario Liberal Party and played an organizational role in several political campaigns.
Ted ran for Mayor of Sudbury against Peter Wong in 1985 but was defeated.
Ted endorsed Colin Firth’s bid to become mayor in 2003, and unsuccessfully sought a seat on the Roman Catholic School Board in 2006.
Ted was the inventor of the D-Best Keyholder and was president of D-Best Products.
He was made a member of the Order of Ontario, during 2009.
Ted Szilva passed away at 81 yrs old.