COMPANY PROFILE: Three Nations Ventures TOP JOBS: Prior to being elected chief of the Salteau First Nation, Harley Davis was a proud full-time employee of Three Nations Ventures 18 tracks & treads • Fall 2008 www.finning.ca
Three Times a First Nations joint venture wows a B.c. logging industry heavyweight, sending critics running for cover STory by ROBIN BRuNET phoTography by DIGITAL B PHOTOGRAPHICS FIVE FROM 3NV: Three Nations Ventures President Darrell Garbitt (left) with four 3NV team leaders. From left to right: Mike Koosis, Warren Garbitt, Art Walker <strong>and</strong> David Gentry. They proudly hold the 250,000 no time loss award I t’s June, three days before Three Nations Ventures will receive plaques from tembec, a leader in integrated forest products, <strong>and</strong> <strong>Finning</strong> (canada) commemorating 250,000 consecutive person hours worked at the tem - bec Log Yard in chetwynd, British columbia, with no time lost to on-the-job incidents. tembec mill manager Wayne clement is enjoying the moment. “I knew from the beginning that three Nations would be a success,” he says. “But frankly, I didn’t think they would achieve so much, so quickly.” Operating consistently in a dem<strong>and</strong>ing work environment with no major mishap is indeed remarkable. But it’s just one facet of the amazing progress made by a small group of people who started with nothing five years ago, <strong>and</strong> today preside over six contracts inte- gral to the tembec Pulp Mill, which produces 500 air-dried metric tonnes of pulp daily. add to this the fact that three Nations Ventures (more commonly known as 3NV) is comprised mainly of saulteau, West Moberly <strong>and</strong> Blueberry river First Nations b<strong>and</strong> members, <strong>and</strong> you have a genuine made-in-B.c. success story that demonstrates the business capabilities of the community as a whole. tom aird, a saulteau member who is 3NV’s accountant <strong>and</strong> human resources specialist, echoes the sentiments of his colleagues when he says: “I’m very proud of 3NV. It adheres to old-fashioned values, <strong>and</strong> it succeeds because of the mutual respect we have for each other <strong>and</strong> for tembec personnel. there are no prejudices here, just a collective desire to be the best possible contractor.” “to repeat the quote of a b<strong>and</strong> chief prior to 3NV being formed,” Lyle Mortenson says, “‘all we wanted was a h<strong>and</strong> up, not a h<strong>and</strong> out.’” Mortenson is a non-native forestry consultant for 3NV with lifelong experience as a liaison between industry <strong>and</strong> First Nations. “today, our debt-to-equity ratio is one to five, we always show a profit at year end. <strong>and</strong> in addition to our incident-free status, we’ve won tembec several awards [from cN rail] for the safe h<strong>and</strong>ling of smelt ash.” at any given time of the day, the tembec log yard is a hive of activity, with as many as 100 trucks arriving daily on the property. three Nations Ventures employs 33 people (twothirds of whom are First Nations members) to perform everything from scaling <strong>and</strong> unloading to shunting <strong>and</strong> mill maintenance. every year, the yard processes 450,000 cubic metres of wood. cat 924 wheel loaders load smelt into rail cars, while 325MHs stack logs in tall, neat piles. the feeding of the mill, which employs 160 people, is non-stop, <strong>and</strong> the yard work far surpasses its predecessor, run by Louisiana-Pacific, in terms of productivity. the venture’s success has roots not just in the people of the region, but also in tembec’s confidence in them. residents of the area who are involved in the project credit tembec for giving 3NV the “h<strong>and</strong> up” it was seeking. “to call tembec a model of a modern business would be an understatement,” says aird. “In fact, I’ve never come across another compa- ny like it, not just because it fosters First Nations business involvement, but because it genuinely treats us as equals.” tembec’s presence in chetwynd dates back to 2002, when delegates from Quebec arrived to finalize purchase of the old Louisiana-Pacific pulp mill <strong>and</strong> re-open the facility, which had been closed for two years. tembec arrived with a long history of working with First Nations across canada, most notably in its sawmills in northern Ontario <strong>and</strong> New Brunswick. so the regional b<strong>and</strong>s were excited by the prospect of the Quebec-based forestry giant transforming the Louisiana-Pacific mill, which was an www.finning.ca Fall 2008 • tracks & treads 19
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