The Penticton Wildstone Group of Companies added another feather to the growing plumage on its corporate cap with this week’s announcement it’s been chosen as one of the country’s 50 best managed companies.
“We actually knew about it a few months ago but we weren’t allowed to publicize it until today (Wednesday) and believe me it is was a hard secret to keep,” said Wildstone president Mark Melissen, who earlier this year was named as a finalist in the QuantumShift award for Canada’s top entrepreneur. “It puts us in a different category, a third-party validation, we had to open up a lot of sensitive information in the judging process I think it gives us some validation to some large national clients that we’re here to stay and we’re a well-run company.
“There’s a lot of different things out there in contests for recognition and we thought best managed was the hardest to get, it’s exclusive, the competition is really fierce, it really makes you evaluate your strategic plan. The recognition is huge.”
Since 1993, the Deloitte program has been one of the leading business awards competition, recognizing excellence in Canadian-owned and managed firms with revenues in excess of $10 million.
Founded by CEO Jim Morrison 21 years ago, the family-owned business does construction work from renovations to mechanical and industrial contracting projects in Western, Central and Northern Canada.
In addition to the Penticton, there are offices in Yellowknife, Yukon and Whitehorse employing over 100 people.
Major projects for the firm include being the prime contractor for a $42 million LNG pipeline in the Canadian north and a nearly $20 million northern Arctic RCMP detachment built on thermopiles which keep the ground frozen around them.
It was the first installation of its kind in Canada. To earn the accreditation Wildstone underwent a rigorous and exhaustive several month, multi-phase process but according to the president it was worth it.
“To put it in a nutshell, how do you differentiate yourself and what’s your strategic plan,” said Melissen. “This shows we’ve got a lot of great corporate values and if we stick to those and we keep doing things right and keep putting our staff first and they treat the customer right.
“We’ve got a lot of diversity in our product, training for staff, giving as much support and keep and keeping people motivated.”
This was Wildstone’s second attempt at the award, falling just shy of making the grade last year. Another recent milestone for Wildstone was the celebration of the firm’s fifth year without a time-loss incident, which equates to nearly 800,000 hours.
“That safety record is huge,” said Melissen, who works in tandem with his brother Mike, the operations manager. “It’s massive in the construction business to go that long without an incident.
“Our staff are paramount, everybody cares about everybody else.
We can write the policies and procedures but it’s the guys working on the sites that really deserve the pat on the backs because they’re the ones enforcing the policies and they’re the guys that are leading by example in making sure that all of the things we say are going to get done, actually get done.”
For the future he sees bright things on the horizon for the company and despite the downtown turn in the economy, he predicts Wildstone will continue to put Penticton at the contracting forefront.
“It’s a tough market out there right now, and lets face it, you have to be nimble but we’re going to keep growing and celebrating our wins,” said Melissen.
