With everything from outdoor recreation to livestock, construction, farm equipment sales, auto salvage and funeral homes, this year’s sixth annual GROWTH Alberta Business Recognition Awards 2010 held in Westlock on Jan. 22 most certainly covered a wide range of business enterprises across the region.
With the 16 awards presented this year, the total for the GROWTH region, which covers eight municipalities including Barrhead, Westlock, Fort Assiniboine, Swan Hills and Clyde, is an even 100, GROWTH board chair Linda West told the Westlock audience.
A bonus for some of those receiving the award are those five who also received special awards.
At this year’s event, the Business of the Year Award was presented to Sanderman Home Hardware of Barrhead.
Owners Bruce and Janice Steinbring are currently in Arizona, and had asked Donna Jackson, one of their staff, to accept the award on their behalf, which she graciously did. What they didn’t know was that she would also be accepting the Business of the Year Award.
The Steinbring’s have operated Sanderman Home Hardware in Barrhead for 31 years, purchasing the business from Janice’s father, the late Hank Sanderman, who had the store for 17 years prior to that. They have a staff of 14, including three students, and a combined total of over 140 years of work experience.
The Business of the Year Award was for their longstanding commitment to their customers, employees and the community at large.
“I enjoy every day of it,” Bruce said on the video clip. “I like being a business owner in Barrhead because I can do my own thing — as long as I pass it by my wife first.”
The comment brought a good chuckle from the audience.
“I always enjoy seeing businesses around us succeeding. We are pleased to have been nominated for this award.”
We were able to reach Bruce and Janice Steinbring by phone last week to gather their reaction following the award.
“We greatly appreciate the honour that was bestowed upon us. It was super!” he said. “We absolutely think it was wonderful that we were recognized.”
Janice said, “We’re very proud, We try really hard to do our best there, Our staff too. We’re just sort of one big unit and honestly, it’s just really nice to be recognized that way.
“Our staff is our number one asset.”
Janice basically grew up in the business of serving customers. In fact, she says, her parents had a little general store in northern Saskatchewan before their move to Barrhead close to a half century ago.
“It’s been a great working experience,” she said.
The audience favourite award this year went to Woodlands RV Park & River Marina at Fort Assiniboine in Woodlands County.
This business was established by Alan and Joy O’Brien of Westlock.
Joy said it was a dream of Alan’s to own a place along the river where he could park his boat. That dream became a reality with the property just east of Fort Assiniboine.
“It was just too beautiful to not share with others, so we opened a campground,” she said.
Alan said the campground has 50 sites plus cabins, and Joy operates a kitchen where her tasty cinnamon buns have become almost legend in a short time.
“This is the only river marina in western Canada, as far as I know,” said Alan.
The community spirit award went to Gummow’s Construction of Swan Hills, a pipeline construction company established 35 years ago.
The economic contribution award went to KMC Oilfield Maintenance of Swan Hills, who purchased the oilfield fluid hauling business five years ago, and have gone from six trucks to 50, serving the industry in an environmentally safe manner.
The inspired ingenuity award was presented to Dapp Power, in Westlock County northeast of Linaria. The company produces electrical power for the province’s power grid, burning waste wood materials from sawmills and other sources.
The other awards went to :
•Barry’s Ultra Motorsports Park (BUMP) in Barrhead County.
• Deerline Sales of Westlock and Barrhead.
• Ed’s Auto Salvage in Westlock.
• The Flower Barn in Westlock.
• Geis Angus Farm in Barrhead County southwest of the town.
• Hagman Bros. Construction of Whitecourt.
• Merrifield Farm in Woodlands County near Whitecourt.
• Spins Tirecraft of Thorhild.
• Tuxedo Farms of Westlock County northwest of Westlock.
• Westlock Funeral Home.
• Westlock Inn & Conference Centre in Westlock.
Video clips of the 16 businesses gave a bit of the background on each business.
The actual awards were also preceded by greetings from Westlock County reeve Charles Navratil, Town of Westlock mayor Bruce Lennon and GROWTH Alberta board chair Linda West, who is a councillor for the Town of Barrhead.
“We had almost 70 nominations for the award last year,” Jodi Goebel, GROWTH Alberta manager later told Town & Country.
“What the committee does is select two from each of the eight municipalities.”
She said those nominated that didn’t receive an award can be re-nominated again this year, and encourages people to put in nominations for the 2011 awards now.
