How Does One Become One of the Best Employers in the Sea to Sky Corridor?

I was having a lot of fun, you know, I work in hard. - Yo, it was playing hard. - It was playing hard. - And it was nice. - And the light was pretty good. (upbeat music) - Have I said too much? (upbeat music) - Pretty soon you'll be telling stories that can't be told. - Welcome to my podcast, Whistler Stories That Need To Be Told. - Today, I have Nigel Woods joining, Chairman and Director of Coastal Mountain Exhibitions, which you started over 40 years ago. What I wanted to start with was how did you get here? Like that's like we all arrived for strange reasons, come skiing or whatever. What brought you here? - I was a UVic student and during my university days, we actually, we had a ski club at the University of Victoria, if you can believe it. And I came up here for the Remembrance Day weekend. And stayed at the little, the A-Frames down at Brandyway. I don't know if you're a follow-up. - I lived there myself. - I was the first. - I was the first partner. - So that was the first place we stayed in. - Oh yeah. - Came up with a lot of university now. - Was the lodge there or just the A-Frame? - Just the A-Frame, right. And it was a big mountain and all the mountains on the island were small and just pretty insignificant. So Whistler had this even then. I mean, that was in probably night. - Oh, 72, maybe. - Yeah, about then, I think. And so it was just a weekend and any time you had a long weekend, I would go, oh gosh, you know, if I just had a few days skiing, I have such a better attitude to come back. The university and get, you know, and then I'll really study, right? - Well, I ended up going skiing more than I did studying. - Of course. - But I finished university event. We decided, you know what we're gonna do? Before we go back to postgraduate school, I was going to go to law school. We decided we're gonna go to Europe and ski for you. And do the Europe thing. - Right. - That's what you did, I did that too. - Yeah, myself, my buddies went to Europe, went to Amsterdam, bought a Volkswagen van, traveled around, you know, did horrifying things. But we were gonna ski for the year. So anyway, we bought new skis and boots in Munich and we stopped in semirits. We went skiing and my first day out and my new equipment, I broke my leg really badly. So I only skied half a day. Anyway, long story short, I was going, well, obviously the European year of skiing, it was gone. - But how does that start your career in a ski area, right? - So anyway, so I went back to Victoria and got a job and then since I'd missed the trip to Europe, I was going to go to law school. But you Vic was just starting law school and it was delayed a year and opening. You know what, I'm gonna go skiing for the year but I'm gonna do it in Whistler. So that's, I came to Whistler that fall, left the girlfriend, right? I was a rider back then, a horseback rider, rode jumping horses. - Oh really? - Quite a high end rider actually, back then as well. - The competitive rider. - And I sold my horse, left the horse in Calgary, left the girlfriend in Victoria. Came to Whistler, not really knowing what I was gonna do except ski. The first year, we came up here, found a place to rent. Just down the road here on Nester's Road, one of the old A-Frames on Nester's Road. I think it's still there, a Gothic A-Frame. And I roamed with a couple of old buddies from Victoria, who was part of the plan, if you will, that I grew up with. - Yeah. - And that's how it came here. I was just going to ski for a year and then go back to law school. - That's a typical story but it's funny how all those things that were kind of devastating and had made you wait and you know, it was kind of destiny. - The best thing that ever happened, one of the best things happened to me in my life was I broke my leg in summer and it changed my life completely and coming to Whistler for that season, I was, you know, during the season I went and talked to my dad at home and, you know, dad was a lawyer. I came from a long line of lawyers and I said, "Dad, you know, what about this?" Dad said, "What do you want to be a lawyer for?" He said, "Terrible job, you know, it's a bad job. I've never liked it." And I went, "Well, why do you tell me this five years ago?" But he didn't. And I went, "Okay." And then basically the idea of being a lawyer, the attraction to being back in Victoria, it was going off of job, going back to school for another, you know, four years. Just the appeal just wasn't there. And the appeal was here. The appeal was here. I learned to be a good skier because I applied to be a ski instructor with McCawkey back in the day and I really learned to ski then. - Well, you had to. - Yeah, it was a big mouth. - Yeah, and it was tough skiing strong, yeah. And I ski, the ski school back then. It was like taught skiing for the first year that I was here. - Oh, yeah. - I skied with the likes of Trudy Selmafer, Trudy Alder, Bob. Yeah, Bob, due for John Colpitz was another one of the guys. - I think there's total ski. - He was, yeah, he was the assistant director back in the day. And, you know, I think the total ski school component might have been two dozen people. And half of them didn't want to teach. They wanted to just go ski powder, right? So I taught ski, and I also during that time, I mean, it only paid six or eight bucks an hour or something like that. It was, well, it started. - If that, I mean, I was making two on the list. - It was ridiculous, right? It was ridiculous. - I know, but it snowed, I mean, it snowed so much. - And that's what started, you know, I started clearing snow, I leased a track. - So the opportunity. - How did you, how did you know were you using equipment on your father's property, when you were young? - I grew up on the farm, I ran the farm. My dad was a lawyer, right? - Oh, okay. - And he couldn't do anything practical, right? - He was, he was the best he could do. - He was a bedwinner, but he was away, right? - He wouldn't fix offense with a nail, he'd tie it up with strength, right? He was just, he was hopeless. And I enjoyed the practical, with your hard work. And we had tractors and we cut hay and, you know, we did all of that. So I was familiar with both equipment. - You could fix it. - Yeah, I could fix it in the satisfaction of hard work, right? - Right, right. - So I leased a tractor for my brother, who was in Victoria, and he had a small, excavating contracting company at that time. - Oh yeah. - My younger brother. The tractor up here. And I started clearing people's dry boys. - Was anybody else doing that? - There was one other guy, below logging, we did a little bit of it. They did all the big parking lots for Whistler, just Whistler at the time. Because they had loaders and stuff that they wouldn't use in the winter, right? They did that, and there was one other guy, but any of the Craig Dugan, and he had some pretty couple of quite nice pieces of equipment, right? And mine was just a little tractor. He had had no windshield on it or anything. I mean, my only windshield was, remember the big Smith Goggle, so it's a great big one. - Yeah, yeah. - That was my windshield. - Yeah, all right. - Yeah, you were out there. - When those snow like hell, the snow just built up on my lap, came up and out. And literally filled the whole area with snow. - So you're out there all day, but you're making good money. It was better than ski school. - Oh, ski school, so I did that. And that was the start of my call it construction career. - But then the sewer, I mean, we incorporated, and there had to be this sewer, and you were like the guy that got the contract, right? - Well, I was at that point. Well, actually, during that same era that I started with the little tractor and teaching skiing, I also worked as a waiter at the cake. - Oh yeah. - I had three jobs, and I balanced all of them somehow, and ended up making a reasonable income, right? And the work at the cake was just a blast. - Yeah, the camaraderie of the cake back in the day. - It was just, it was packed. - Every weekend, it was just hilarious to go. - So I remember back in the day, and this is kind of interesting history of where we've come. I was training to be a waiter at the cake, and I'm behind this guy who was a long-time waiter, and the cake was kind of an in place at that time. - It was. - I remember it for sure. - It was behind this guy. He served this customer a steak. The steak was destroyed. It was just a burnt offering. And the guy, he says, the guy says to the waiter, Jay, he says, well, do you call this a steak? And Jay looks in the mirror, he says, well, it's not a fucking fish, is it? (laughing) And that was a customer service. (laughing) So obviously, I was a lot better than that. - This is the rough world, it was slivered. - That was when the cake was down at all. - I know, yeah, no, it was fun. Like in the slugs and be played, and we'd be popping around. - Preaker's balls were held there. - So anyway, I came to Whistler because of an accident in Switzerland, and because I decided I wasn't that continue with the career path of being a lawyer. And necessity of supporting yourself actually started the construction company. - Yeah, and timing. - And timing is, things just kind of happened. - It happened. - It's destined. - Yeah, and, you know, that the first summer I lived here, you know, after the summer is totally different. - So it was completely different. - So it was a whole new deal. And I actually got a job in the summer working for Velo Logging. - Right, yeah. - Which was the Logging Company where Saber's Yard is now, right? - Yeah. - Where Saber Rental says. - With the cook house and everything. - Yeah, the cook house and jam. - So I was hired as a first aidman 'cause I had an industrial first aid ticket and a skater operator 'cause I ran equipment. I did everything. And it was a really well-paid job. - Were you out in the wood? - We logged up the Ryan River Valley up to Pemberton. - Yeah. - And I got to, I learned about the West Coast Pacific Highly Logging, which was unbelievable. It was the most dangerous. - I did it. I did it last thing. - And it was dangerous, frightening. Like it was kind of like going to war every day. - No kidding. And there were no safety precautions. - It was terrible. - Just, you know, get out there and don't be a whimp. - Hey, I just lived, you know, somehow. But you got paid pretty good. - I got, we got paid pretty well. Lawrence, below my boss, was a wonderful man. - Yeah. - He's just a good guy. - Treated me really well. And I worked harder than, oh my God, it was hard work. - I kind of thought that there might be an opportunity to have a small construction company that was an equipment company. So I talked to Lawrence about it. He said, I asked him, well, Lawrence, what do you think? And Lawrence said, you know, it's probably not a bad idea. And because things were, it was-- - There will be a future here. - It's starting to move. And they did, most of the construction projects were done here in town that involved equipment, bulldozers and so on. They did it with the extra equipment they had in the logging business. There was no other equipment contractor here. - No. - In the area, but they were primarily loggers. - And they were peppered in people too. - Yeah, they were peppered in people. - Although they did have the camp here. - Yeah, yeah. - And Lawrence. - And that was a center of town. - It was, yeah. - That's where we got our mail. That's where the cookhouse was. That's where it all happened. - It was everything. - They used to have those, where they used to have the sander racers that the building supplied. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh, and they had, and they used to have in the shop. They'd have those big, the cookhouse parties and the Halloween parties and stuff. - Guys lived there. - So, yeah, but, you know, it was. So, I started thinking about it. I really didn't have much money, but my brother had an older backhoe that he was gonna sell. So I sent the little tractor back and bought his backhoe. - Oh, okay. - And then. - That was Adrian, here. - That was my brother Adrian, yeah. And so, I bought the backhoe and then I knew that the main sewer trunk was gonna come into town, right? So, when that happened, I went and made contact with standard general construction back in the day. - Right. - Who was the contractor? - They're the big guys. - They're the big guys from there. I think it would be a subcategory, actually. - Oh, yeah. - And they were. - They did it on the sewer. - You did it on the sewer and won it. And I supplied some of the, I supplied my backhoe and myself to them to do support work for their, you know, their bigger stuff. - But you had to get a bigger machine. - Yeah, well, I just had the backhoe then. - Okay. - Right? And I had the backhoe then and worked for them. And they got another contract putting in the sewers. Actually, it went from there when the main trunk was done. That took a year and a half or two about that. - To go to from Elthavista to Funcities. - That can then on into the village eventually, right? So when that infrastructure was expanded into the subdivisions into Creekside, into Altavista and those other subdivisions that were on the south end of town, I bought another machine, a new one and went back to work for standard general construction. As an independent contractor. And I also worked for another company called Bounds Construction, which was an old BC company that did all the infrastructure in Creekside for their sanitary sewers and so on and so forth, right? I did the work for standard general in the main sewer trunk, but also somebody. - You kept busy. You're in Europe. - I did and then I used them to my backhoe to start plowing more and more driveways, you know, and I could do that. - And you got it. And you hired guys in like Scotty Hurren. I mean, was he one of the first guys you hired? - It was him and a guy by the name of Jim Burton. - Oh yeah, Jim Burton. - JB was actually, JB was one of my first employees. There was really no equipment operating schools. We all taught ourselves how to do it, you know? That was-- - And it was rude of entry too. It was just levers, not hydrostatic or anything. - It was all, it was a lot harder than it was now. - Yeah, for sure, because they were taught, right? - So the business I had a business I was making here, pretty good living, and you know what? I was skiing in the wintertime. - Yo, it was playing hard and you know, life was pretty good, right? And there was no-- - No, that's what kept us here, right? It's the people and it was a small community. And there was no TV and radio. So we had to be entertaining ourselves. So we ended up drinking a lot. - We had a ball. - But we had a good time. - We had a really good time, exactly. - You know, I probably worked more than a lot of the, you know, I'd be underneath the machine, fixing it. When my other friends were off doing some else, right? - Yeah, you had to. - I had to, you know, I was going to fix it, so I fixed it. - When the business, when I really got going, I hired Jim Burton, was my first employee, and our first major job, I think, was when all the water mains froze up in Emerald Estates. - Oh. - All right. - And Francois Lapine, right? - Your member Francois? - Oh, yeah. - He was working for Norm Patterson, he looked after the waterworks. - They were fine. - And they all played in Emerald. - Every time that all the water mains were frozen solid. - Right. - No one had any water, it was just an S. - It's all raw, come in, nobody put any water. - And then they were all in the water mains, for a couple of 3PG, and their frozen solid. - Pretty rough. - It was done. And so I hired JB to run the backo out there, because before that, the year before that, I believe I bought the first excavator to ever come into this valley. - Big machine. - Big machine, and I didn't know how to run it, didn't really know how it was going to pay for it, but I somehow cajoled some independent finance company, thing was called traders, finance, gave me enough money to buy it, because the guy that they'd finance went broke, and I bought kind of the remaining part of the debt on that piece of equipment. And it was a good piece of equipment. It was a large excavator. The excavators weren't used for anything back in the day. It was bulldozers and loaders. They were a unique piece of equipment. And I thought up here with all the rock and the default terrain, the excavator was probably the best tool. It was being talked about, I bought one, and I put it to work. The first job I went on, actually there's a picture of myself and Pat Carlton, who was the first mayor of Whistler, on what is now Larma Road. And Larma Road was actually the training berm. It was the dike that was put in to safeguard what was going to be the town center. And the training berm, I trained myself and got paid to do it, running the excavator, building this dike. - But now you're up to 16 employees or something? - We have about 100 staff. - 100 staff. - Yeah, we have 100 staff. - A lot of them. - It's a lot of business. - A lot of business, a lot. - Well, so we kept moving along and started getting into utility construction, water and sewer mains, which were either being built or repaired or whatever. And I think the first really big job we did was we built phase one of Whistler K. Heist. - Oh yeah. - Back in the day, for Bernie Brown. - 1980s and Bob Bishop. - Yeah. - It was about 78, 79 in my life. - And then inflation. - Yeah. - 22% of his money. - Yes, yes. - Well, you could give those lots of it. - Yes. - Terrible. - Yeah, yeah. - But I kept working, right? I kept, yep. I had two or three excavators by that point. My office, I'd moved. I don't know if you remember Bruce, the buckhorn ranch. - Yeah. - Well, yeah, you were in the ranch. You were in the buckhorn ranch, that little green log cabin was in my office, which is where I think it's the 50th fairway on Nicholas Norton. - And it used to flood. - Well, flood, it was terrible. You put all the filing cabinets up on the desk and wait for the water to go down. I remember driving up to the office on the wave of water, getting the front door of the water was up to the bumper in my truck. And the water just boiled. - It just felt was it though. It was just living in Whistler, right? - Yeah, these things happen all the time. - Yeah, so, you know, coming to Whistler and starting the business and the business, just it went through peak survales. But overall, you know, I didn't have a lot of overhead then, right, really. And it just started, it gradually continued together. - But, you know, like you say, on your website, you've kept your employees. - Yeah. - It's been like a family. It's a good, you're a good employer. You know, like me, you have good Christmas parties. You know, camaraderie. You guys have to work in the dirt, night, all kinds of stuff like that. And it brings guys together. It's, that's the cool thing about the little town, you know? - Yeah. - People are here for, you know, the camaraderie. - Well, Scotty Hurrin, you are at this service day, you know. Scotty worked for me for 40 plus years. - Yeah, I know. - And 42, 43 years. He wore out four or five excavators, his wore them right out with the number of hours that he put on. - Yeah. - How did you get to put that memorial forum on the Valley Trail and the golf course? That's quite the. - Well. - Remember it's for us. - Yeah, it was pretty neat, actually, you know. It was a bit, a bit driven by Colbert, and I felt really badly. His Scotty was one of the first guys to actually pass away from Colbert, and he was a really well-loved man in this town, actually throughout the whole corridor between Squamish, Whistler, and Pemberton. You know, he was a bit of a legend. - Yeah. - And. - Another guy in the infamous Toad Hall picture. - Exactly. - And he was like the fathers of Whistler. - He was just a terrific guy. - That's that memorial I did, we did for him, and that was at our company. Close to, it was my idea that Scotty had originally built those T-boxes that were there, using the rock stacking and stuff. It was our job to do. Scotty did it, and he knew the guys at Whistler Golf Club really well. Dave Gotts, like who ran it, you know, and Al Chris Madison is there now. New Scotty, well, we always did quite a bit of work for all of these golf courses, you know, with it, flood control or capital improvements. - Sure. - Those sorts of things. So, it seemed like a really neat opportunity to do something that Scotty, people who couldn't come and say goodbye to Scotty during their time. - Yeah. - Which no one could, no one got to say goodbye to Scotty. - Not the way he should have been. - Not the way he should have been, you know, it should have been, there was nothing, right? So I thought, well, at least if we put that memorial of that viewers bench and area at the 60th T there, people will come by and it's a gorgeous view. - It's a great view. - And they had a great history of him. And the golf club was kind enough and Whistler municipality. They agreed it was fine. It was going to be a permanent memorial that Scott heard at that corner. - Beautiful. - And that's, that's, it turned out great. - Yeah, no, and that's a very Whistler, you know, story. I think that's, you know, fantastic to be memorialized in such a solid way for a solid guy, you know? - Yeah, it was a really amazing thing. - Really solid. - Yeah, and so good for you for doing that. And, you know, it's wonderful that you can appreciate, and then you must have appreciated you. It's worked for you for 40 years, you know, so that, I mean, that's what I want to bring out in this talk is everybody I interviews here for a reason and the reason is the community. And I think we need to promote that more. - Well, it's harder as we get bigger, of course. - It is, but you know, Bruce and Tim Colson, my, our operations manager now, who was actually partnering in the business with my son Matt, they want it together. One of the, one of the, sort of the criteria as far as hiring is concerned, and we have always found that Whistler is a very unique place, you know, and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but what we found is if you are gonna hire somebody, you had to make sure that they really wanted to be here. If they wanted to be here, they were gonna be a good employee. You could, if maybe their skills weren't quite what they should be, they could be taught. And, and that way, I think that's probably one of the reasons we had the retention of employees that we've had historically, we don't have much turnover even now. Even these days, actually. I mean, we're into another whole generation of employees, but, I mean, we've had guys, Stewie Donald, for example, he worked for me for nearly 40 years, he just retired. I mean, the list goes on and on and on, right now. - And that's good business. I mean, that's just common sense, good business, but a lot of businesses don't, don't understand that. - We've always valued our employees, because we've always been, I think, you know, a class A employer here in Whistler. And if someone wants to come and work in the heavy construction business, wants to run machinery, wants the big ditches, we've always been the best company to work for. - Thank you for listening today. Join us on my next episode and hear more Whistler stories that need to be told. Please share and let me know what you think of my podcast. If you have a Whistler story that needs to be told, I want to hear it.