David Pecaut, seen here in February, 2007, has died of cancer at the age of 54.

CHARLA JONES/TORONTO STAR

Pecaut took his cue from his mother, Dorothy. In 1997 when near death, she told him that in the end it wasn't his business success that would matter, it was his family and volunteer work for his community that would loom large.

An eager and adventurous kid from Sioux City, Iowa, who had graduated from Harvard and done graduate work in Britain, Pecaut moved to Toronto in the 1980s and embraced this city in a way that is almost unheard of among people who lived their entire lives here – including the formation of the Toronto City Summit Alliance in 2002 and culminating with the creation of Luminato, an annual festival of arts in creativity he co-founded in 2007.

Like the late Jane Jacobs, he was a can-do American visionary whose move to Toronto changed the way the city sees itself. With his quirky smile, owlish look and relentless approach to recruiting and persuading others, he was like a high-pressure salesman whose entire product line consisted of ideas.

Pecaut – whose father, grandfather and brother were all Sioux City stockbrokers – made his fortune as a consultant on business strategy. He bought the Canada Consulting Group, where he had been a partner, and merged it with the Boston Consulting Group, a huge international organization specializing in providing business strategy. It was a highly lucrative deal for Pecaut.

But true to his mother's words, he made his greatest mark as a fast-talking, silver-tongued and messianic booster of Toronto, and within his own close family after marrying prominent Ontario Liberal Helen Burstyn in 1990.

Burstyn had two daughters from a previous marriage; she and Pecaut had two more together. They met when she was working at Queen's Park as a member of the Premier's Council for the David Peterson government, and Pecaut was a consultant doing a study.

"He was the best management consultant I ever met," recalls Burstyn. "But the reason I found him so interesting was that he was a Renaissance man as well, who could talk about literature and theatre. From my perspective, it just doesn't get better than that."

One day he asked if he could leave his briefcase in the trunk of her car. When he opened it, he found bags of food, which she explained she was going to drop off at a food bank.

According to Burstyn, Pecaut's spectacular volunteer work for his adopted city began in the mid-1990s when Anne Golden asked him to do some consulting work for a task force she was running about economic prospects for the GTA.

He was invited to speak at the City Summit in 2002, and his speech made a big impact. After that, he decided it wasn't enough. That led to the formation of the Toronto City Summit Alliance.

"His heart and passion are with Toronto, and he always finds ways to make things happen," says the Mayor. "It was impossible to say 'no' to him because he worked miracles to find common ground where the only answer was 'yes.'" Inspired by Pecaut, more than 6,000 people became involved in Alliance projects, tackling everything from immigrant integration to income security reform to cultivating emerging leaders.

"He taught us all civic responsibility and engagement," explains Deans. "I have never met anyone with David's intellectual curiosity, his passion for serving others well and creatively, and his ability to convene people and facilitate solutions that lead to action and change."

"If you ask me or his kids or his siblings or his closest friends which civic projects best captured and most excited him," says Burstyn, "it's Luminato. No question."

Many skeptics said this festival could never work – but in just three years it has become established as one of the city's cultural magnets.

"David and I always called each other brother," says Gagliano. "He was the smartest and the most passionate man I ever met. He used his smarts and his passion for the gain of the people of Toronto. He was the greatest mayor we never had, and the greatest citizen we ever had. I will miss my brother more than I can imagine."

"David had an incredible ability to make you believe even the most impossible-sounding project could be achieved," says Janice Price, whom he lured back to her native Toronto from the U.S. to become CEO of Luminato. "Suddenly the impossible would be done – and we were all left wondering why it had seemed like a crazy idea when David first proposed it."

Of all his big ideas, Burstyn says, the biggest and the best was Luminato. "It was the most ambitious, the most complex, the most intellectually demanding and satisfying... the most David."

He and Gagliano turned out to be the perfect couple, she added. They started with nothing but built the festival into a stunning success.

Indeed, she adds, Pecaut was culturally eclectic, so Luminato was "the perfect outlet for his cultural curiosity – a candy store of the arts."

For their work in creating Luminato, Pecaut and Gagliano were jointly named Canadians of the Year in 2008 by the Canadian Club. And at the lunch honouring them, Premier Dalton McGuinty was among those paying tribute.

"I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of David Pecaut. At the same time, I am grateful for the gift that was his life and work," said McGuinty in a statement today.

"For my part, I will remember him for his passion for people, his courage, and his idealism. I will miss his exciting ideas and, above all, his warm friendship," McGuinty said.

Rocco Rossi, who announced his candidacy for the Toronto mayor's race today,  called Pecaut "a visionary who loved our city as much as anyone ever did."

Pecaut was passionate and aggressively positive about many things: playing basketball at the Metro Central YMCA (despite being 5 foot 8); collecting art, especially face masks; helping Toronto become the greenest city on the continent; and raising money for anything he felt would improve the city.

Even while battling cancer, Pecaut took on another challenge: raising money for the Toronto International Film Festival's new home, Bell Lightbox. But after a couple of months, his deteriorating health forced him to step down from that role.

"His reach was expansive, his energy boundless and infectious," says Piers Handling, co-CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival. "We were so fortunate to have benefitted from his longstanding and passionate support of TIFF. We will miss his creative leadership and fearlessness in trying to build a better community."

In recent years, Pecaut, Burstyn and their daughters lived happily in an elegant but cozy Rosedale house with a wonderful garden where they liked to entertain friends and colleagues, including McGuinty and his wife.

In May they had a garden party to celebrate his stepdaughter Lauren's engagement. Pecaut, who had been through many months of radiation and chemotherapy in Toronto and New York, had told his wife he wasn't up to making a speech. But at the last minute, he gave an eloquent and emotional speech about family history.

Days later he had a setback, discovering that after being told he seemed to have beaten colon cancer for the second time in five years, the cancer had entered his lungs. By June it took a superhuman effort for Pecaut to make nightly appearances at what turned out to be his third and final Luminato festival.

"I'll have to be a little more measured in my pace," he admitted at the time. "I'm still going to be out there contributing to the city, but not at the same frenetic pace. As you know, my attitude is always positive... Eventually we all have to step back, and then you hope all these wonderful things will be sustained by new collective leadership."

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