Everyday Heroes: Meet Finning's service ... - Finning Canada

Island BuilderIt’s been 53 years since John Chew incorporatedhis business, Chew Excavating Ltd.In those days, Chew says a handshake wasgood enough to seal a deal. While plenty haschanged in the construction world over thosefive-plus decades, the influential Chew hasn’taltered his approach.“Customer service was how we built thebusiness,” says the 80-year-old native of theMunicipality of Saanich, a suburb of Victoria,B.C.It’s the same today, though the scope ofChew’s work has increased. His footprints areall over Vancouver Island, where Chew’s employeeshave completed a variety of pipe laying,road building projects and a lot of sewersystem work for municipalities.Diversification has been instrumental tohis success. And Chew has played a huge rolein actually growing the construction industryin the area. He would hire operators, get themexperience and they would eventually branchoff on their own to compete for jobs.“It’s the nature of the beast,” says Chew.“You apprenticed people, teaching them howto run machines, teaching them howto run businesses. Then they growup, like we all did.”“He started three-quartersof the contractors here in Victoria,”says Finning’s GreggWhitson. “He’s very creative.He’ll step out and do thingsthat other people won’t.I wish I had his guts.”The father of fourchildren and four grandk i d s l e a r n e d t h evalue of hard workearly, by helping out onthe farm with his owndad, a market gardener. In the initialyears of running his business, Chew wasdefinitely hands on, happily operating thebackhoe by himself.By the 1960s, he had begun his lengthyrelationship with Finning by purchasing avariety of machines. “We did almost all theexcavations in the city of Victoria in the ’60sand ’70s,” Chew recalls. “We had a lot of loadersand blasters. We bought the first 955 fromFinning and 933s, and 977s.” He isn’t quitesure of how many Cats his companies operatetoday, though.“Quite a few,” he says with a laugh.These days Chew, who also owns VictoriaHarbour Ferry, leaves daily operations tohis son-in-law Bruce Dyck. After a lifetime ofhard work, the bigger concern is planning afew Chinook salmon fishing trips per year orshaving a couple strokes off his handicapwhen golfing with his wife.Those recreational excursions arewell earned, given Chew’s commitmentto his employees and theregion as a whole. In April 2007,he was given a Lifetime AchievementAward by the Greater VictoriaChamber of Commerce.“You’ve got to give backt o t h e c o m m u n i t y, ”says Chew, “otherwise,what haveyou got?”Finning FamilyFinning’s operations in Alberta got abig boost late last year with some goodnews on the business front. On November27, Finning International Inc. announcedthat it had acquired CollicuttEnergy Services, a leader in the Canadianoilfield service industry, known forits servicing and fabrication of naturalgas compression equipment and electricpower generation in both Alberta andBritish Columbia.“The Collicutt acquisition helps usaddress our needs for facilities and people.It will boost our ability to meet thegrowing demand for service from ourcustomers, particularly in the mining,heavy construction and power systemsindustries,” Finning (Canada) presidentIan Reid said in a recent release. “Wewelcome the Collicutt employees to ourservice teams.”Shareholders feel the love, too. “Thistransaction provides all Collicutt shareholderswith an attractive premium torecent trading values,” Steven Collicutt,president and chief executive officer,said last November. Collicutt shareholdersreceived $9.75 per share with the8 TRACKS & TREADS • Spring 2008 www.finning.ca