Wayne Brownlee was born January 17, 1953 in Biggar, Saskatchewan to William Brownlee and Rita Hazel nee Thrun. Brownlee attended the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and obtained his bachelor of Science with honours majoring in Biology and also completed his Masters in Business Administration. He married twice and had two children, Ryan and Kara. He went on to become senior vice president and Chief Executive Officer of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan PCS. The privatisation of PCS was enabled with the coordination efforts of Brownlee placing the corporation onto the public stock market rather than funded as a Saskatchewan Government Crown Corporation. Before working with PCS, Brownlee worked in the Saskatchewan Govermnet Ministry of Finance and the Treasury Board.

Brownlee is also Vice Chairman of the Board for Sociedad Quimica Y Minera De Chile SQM, a member of the Board of Directors of the Great Western Brewing Company, the Saskatoon Airport Authority and Philom Bios. SQM is notable as biggest producer of Potassium nitrate and iodin internationally. Philom Bios is a company specialising in agricultural biotechnology.

Brownlee's mother, Rita Thrun was the grade three elementary school teacher in Biggar in 1948-49.

Bibliography:
About Us - Management and Board of Directors ...". Wayne Brownlee. PotashCorp. February 13, 2009. http://www.potashcorp.com/about_potashcorp/management_and_bod/management/page_3.zsp. Retrieved 2009-11-05.

Lumley, Elizabeth (2002) (Digitised online by Google Books). Canada Who's Who 2002. University of Toronto Press. p.178. ISBN 0802049702, 9780802049704. http://books.google.ca/books?id=qdputV-PatcC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=roy+atkinson+biggar,+Saskatchewan&source=bl&ots=1KeRON5x6y&sig=k983X8iJDRqYb77_G6ATUF0f6no&hl=en&ei=M6TvSvjhF4qwMOS-9Y0H&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CB0Q6AEwCDge#v=onepage&q=roy%20atkinson%20biggar%2C%20Saskatchewan&f=false. Retrieved 2009-11-02.


"Wayne Brownlee: Executive Profile & Biography - BusinessWeek". The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 2000-2009. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=297551&ric=POT.TO. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
"Wayne R. Brownlee Profile - Forbes.com". Forbes.com LLC. 2009. http://people.forbes.com/profile/wayne-r-brownlee/64821. Retrieved 2009-11-05.