First Nations Inc.: Out of injustice, entrepreneur seizes opportunity Businesswoman is a powerhouse in region that is home to some economically thriving bands By Jenny Lee, Vancouver Sun September 24, 2014 Elaine Alec started her First Nations entertainment company out of a sense of injustice. Although clubs were charging at the door, her then boyfriend, hip hop artist K.A.S.P., wasn’t getting paid for his performances. “I said ‘We need to fix that.’ ” Alec was just 19 at the time. Today, 18 years later, K.A.S.P. Entertainment sends K.A.S.P. across Canada doing motivational hip hop shows and workshops for aboriginal youth. Clients include school districts, health authorities and the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The company also recruited dancers for the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (as a subcontractor to David Atkins Enterprises). But that’s not all the entrepreneurial Alec does. Now 37, she is also a community and land use planner whose clients include private business, government and her own Penticton band. Alec is one of a growing number of aboriginal entrepreneurs in the Thompson/Okanagan. Many First Nations entrepreneurs in the region work in professional services, but are also well represented in construction and retail. The Thompson/Okanagan’s major aboriginal economic development activity is clustered around Osoyoos, Kamloops and Westbank in such areas as tourism, industrial parks and wine making as well as commercial, industrial and residential land leasing and development. The Osoyoos band is deeply involved in tourism and either operates or leases land for everything from a resort to a cellar, golf course, RV park, vineyard, spa and ski resort. Some of the band’s businesses, such as the golf course, started off years ago as land leases, said Clarence Louie, Osoyoos Indian Band chief and CEO of the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation. The First Nation has been described as one of the most economically successful in Canada for its ventures and partnerships. The 18,000-sq-ft award-winning Nk’Mip winery is Canada’s first aboriginal-owned and operated winery. The Nk’Mip Conference Centre can accommodate 350 people and includes swimming pools and a spa. New projects include Spirit Ridge, a residential development partnership between the Osoyoos Indian Band and Bellstar Developments that includes a nine-hole par-35 golf course, swimming pools, hot tubs and a lakeside marina. Projects in the pipeline include South Okanagan Motorsports Club’s Area 27, a proposed racetrack country club to be located 20 kilometres outside Oliver on band land. “We’re interested in all sorts of business. Anything that creates jobs,” Louie said. “Tourism of course, golf courses, wineries, agriculture, but also industry and residential development.” The band’s campground, RV park and winery are each among the largest in their respective categories in B.C., Louie said. Bonnie Dancey, CEO of the South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce (which covers Oliver, Osoyoos and Okanagan Falls), said the band “has created a lot of economic wealth” in the region. “Tourism and agriculture are the two main industries in this area and (the Osoyoos band is) a major player in tourism. Their businesses spur on other businesses,” said. The band is also a partner on the South Okanagan Correctional Centre, which is being build on First Nations land and will create about 240 full-time jobs once it is operational, she noted. In Kamloops and area, First Nation businesses are well diversified among industrial and residential land development and businesses such as data warehousing, cloud-based computing, heavy mechanic maintenance and restaurants, said Leslie Lax, former general manager of the Kamloops Indian Band Development Corporation. “The leasing of land and (land) improvement is a significant contribution to the Kamloops economy and significant in the sense that it provides an area for critical mass,” Lax said. In 1965, the band opened the first industrial park on reserve land in Canada. Today, the 900-acre Mount Paul Industrial park has more than 300 tenants. The Sun Rivers development on land leased from the band is expected to have 2,000 homes, as well as retail and food and beverage services. It already has an 18-hole golf course and restaurant. The Westbank band excels in commercial retail development. In 2012, the band had 1.3-million square feet of retail real estate with an assessed value of $1.2 billion. They also harvest about 100,000 cubic metres of timber annually and operate their own logging company, with development partnerships included Ponderosa Golf and Resort. The Penticton band is just starting work on an economic development master plan for its 46,000 acres of land, said Alec, who is involved in the work. The band is planning to build a new bridge across the Okanagan river channel, which is expected to open up 100 acres for development within the next year, Alec said. “We’re looking at commercial retail, but also residential, agricultural, industrial, niche high-end boutique stores. Our community wants to see innovative, clean-energy-type businesses within our community.” “In the Thompson/Okanagan, we’re the Hawaii of Canada,” said Alec, who has politics in her blood. Her father was chief of the Bonaparte Indian Band in Cache Creek and she counts Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, as her mentor and “second dad.” While there may have been just a handful of aboriginal strategic planning consultants in all of B.C. four years ago, there are now three in the Thompson-Okanagan alone and at least a dozen provincewide, Alec said. Kekuli Cafe, owned by Sharon Bond-Hogg, an aboriginal entrepreneur from Merritt, now has two locations, in Westbank and Merritt, and has started looking for franchisees. Meanwhile, Tony Desjarlais of Duraglas Composites is in such an unusual business, he has only a handful of competitors in Western Canada. Desjarlais sells Fiberglas grave liners to cemeteries and funeral homes across B.C., Alberta and even into the U.S. Grave liners are usually concrete, Fiberglas or plastic boxes placed over a coffin to prevent the ground from sinking as the coffin decomposes, said Desjarlais, a Metis from West Kelowna who has the liners made for him in Summerland. “Every cemetery needs them, but it’s a small business because the majority of people in B.C. get cremated,” Desjarlais said. Although the Thompson-Okanagan has a recent history as a retirement community, young aboriginal entrepreneurs in the region are more interested in building cultural, sports and adventure tourism, indigenous plant nurseries and hemp production ventures than assisted living developments, condos and big box stores, Alec said. “We want to see wilderness tours, horseback riding, healing retreats and spas, recycling plants, furniture and computer manufacturing, quinoa farms.” vancouversun/business/First+Nations+injustice+entrepreneur+seizes+opportunity/10232392/story.html#ixzz3EKu5YvZE Deborah Kuhl, Kuhl Photo
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:51:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015