David Holmes Black

Who is David Holmes Black?

David Holmes Black, a native of Vancouver, founded and is the current owner of Black Press. The son of Alan and Adelaide Black, his family moved to Toronto, where he attended school. In college, Black studied engineering and obtained a master's degree in business administration. In 1973, Black found a job at the Toronto Star newspaper as an analyst. The company sent Black to various locations in North America where they operated subsidiary projects. Through his travels, Black learned about the newspaper trade and eventually purchased his own publication.

Black Press operates 120 community and daily newspapers and websites in British Columbia, Alberta, Washington State, San Francisco, Hawaii and Akron, Ohio.

Black's first newspaper acquisition was the Williams Lake Tribune in 1975, which he bought from his father and still owns under the Black Press envelope. Black's second acquisition was the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal. Black Press now owns other flagship community papers, such as the Victoria News, Surrey Leader, Peace Arch News, Kelowna Capital News, and the Abbotsford News.

On Aug. 17, 2012, Black announced he is putting forth a proposal to build a $13.2 billion oil refinery in Kitimat, B.C. with his company, Kitimat Clean Ltd. The refinery would refined bitumen into 8 different products. There are currently no plans for bitumen from the Northern Gateway pipeline to be refined before shipping. This is a separate project, however Mr. Black would happily refine bitumen from Northern Gateway, but at this time there is no deal between Mr Black and Enbridge [Dec, 2013].