Incorporation and
the first few years
Once the purchase was completed, the company had to start from scratch. It literally had only a business plan and nothing else. No offices. No money. They had to negotiate final financing and complete the employee shareholders' agreement. They had to set up an accounting system and develop a marketing plan. And they had to find a way to turn their six individual nurseries into one successful company.
The original management team. From left to right, back row: Ev Van Eerden, Grant Kaiser, Bill Roberts, Dawn Stubley, Tom Harvie, Bob Hudson, Dave Swain, Charlie Johnson. Front row: Marianne Taylor, Betty Basraba, Sharon Peterson, Eileen Kudryk, Pat Jones, Connie Pierrot.
Sandy MacIver, who was with Coopers and Lybrand at that time, was engaged to help with the task of bringing the nurseries together. He and Charlie travelled to each of the nurseries to hold team building sessions with the employees. One purpose of the sessions was to help each nursery realize they were now part of the PRT family, and all the employees were encouraged to share ideas, resources and skills with staff at the other nurseries. A quarterly newsletter, eventually christened 'ImPrints,' was created to help keep everyone up to date on happenings within the company.
Ev Van Eerden and Dan Davies signing cheques at PRT's corporate office on Yates Street.
The sessions were also meant to help the now ex-government employees with the transition to the private sector. In a government operation, generating revenue and making a profit are never an issue. In the private sector, they determine whether a company will survive. A lot of time was invested educating staff about how to run a nursery as a business, about profit and loss, about marketing, and about risk management. This education took place at all levels of the company and all the employees were invited to contribute their ideas. It was a stressful year, but the team building sessions helped to get everyone working together toward a common set of goals.
One of those goals was that the company had to prepare itself for 1993 when the seedling contract with the B.C. government would be completed. With the responsibility for reforestation shifting from government to industry, Charlie and Ev knew that the company had to focus its marketing efforts on the forest companies. They also began looking for ways to diversify the company's revenue base.
The Campbell River Nursery delivery truck. From left: Burt Flemming, Ralph (the 'mechanic') Harrison, Denise Dionne and Bob Hudson.
PRT started various horticulture programs at each of the nurseries. Non-seedling crops included poinsettias, Christmas trees, bedding plants, and woody ornamentals. Harris Cloning and Propagating Inc., a commercial micropropagation lab, was purchased in the spring of 1989 and relocated to a new lab on the Chilliwack Nursery site. PRT added a forestry consulting division and purchased a tree planting operation. This allowed the company to offer a full range of silviculture services. Early on, management also began investigating expansion into the Alberta and Saskatchewan seedling markets.
Although the number of bareroot seedlings required for planting had dropped, requests for container-grown stock were increasing. In 1987, the forest companies had been made financially responsible for replanting any newly logged Crown land. They began to demand higher quality trees and, specifically, container-grown seedlings, as they were easier to plant and performed better in the field.
Samples of 2+0 Sitka spruce bareroot at Campbell River Nursery, 1989.
This presented a new problem for PRT, as most of the six nurseries that had been purchased were primarily bareroot operations. During the first year of operation, PRT nurseries produced 50 million seedlings, a significant portion of which were bareroot. To remain competitive, the company knew that it had to drastically increase its container seedling capacity, and an aggressive expansion program was initiated. Some of PRT's competition failed to understand how expensive and critical this transition was for PRT's survival and continued success. In the first four years, an additional 325,000 square feet of greenhouse space was created through expansion, as well as conversion of existing facilities. The company also leased space and began looking into acquiring other nursery sites that already had established greenhouse capacity.
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 The most important asset we bought in the purchase was the employee's expertise and dedication.
Charlie Johnson RPF
President
(Harrop Team Building Session, 1990)
We must also recognize that PRT is different from government now; our managers have to learn to become businessmen and to market our products.
Facilitator (Vernon Nursery Team Building Session, April 1990)
Along with the physical changes that occurred at the Chilliwack nursery during its four years, there were also numerous face and attitude changes. Many employees had several years of "government" service and the change to private enterprise was difficult. I can still visualize Sandy's team building sessions and the difficult task he had. Also, the management presentations by Charlie, Ev and Dan. I believe these were useful meetings and helped most employees with the changes. I must have said a hundred times that PRT's initial years would have made a great human development or psychology course case study.
Stewart Haywood-Farmer RPF
Superintendent,
PRT Vernon
They [the government] told us we were going to get 45 million trees a year and then it all changed from bareroot to containers. So some people said that we got the nurseries cheap, but they were forgetting that we bought bareroot nurseries. Campbell River, Red Rock and Chilliwack were largely bareroot nurseries. It was change -- and do it quick -- or get out of the business.
Reg Renner
Production Superintendent,
PRT Reid Collins
It was so positive. It was so good. With government you had a budget and then you still couldn't get the things you needed. We planted seed that was half dead for years, and we knew better. And we knew the balsam needed more water and different things like that. So the first thing PRT did was to get our own seed lab going and all of a sudden we were planting live seed. Which was great. We got computers right away and blackout systems. So then we had the tools to work with. Roll-on pallets with wheels on them. We got so many things. With government we just didn't get anything. It was all labor intensive. When PRT came in, we all had a lot of ideas about things we wanted to change and we did it. Bang, bang, bang. So it was really great for us.
Denise Dionne
Grower, PRT Campbell River
The fundamental strength of our organization resides in the vast knowledge of our people. Pacific Regeneration Employee Holdings Inc.'s wealth-creating capacity is a function of everyone's ability to nurture meaningful relationships among each other and between all levels of the organization.
Charlie Johnson
President
(President's report to
the shareholders,
March 31, 1991)
Charlie Johnson, Ev Van Eerden, Dan Davies and others had, in my opinion, a very progressive approach to labor relations. While many companies in those days were talking about a partnership between management and labor, that partnership truly existed with PRT. My instructions were always to share fully the information available with the employees at the bargaining table. Indeed, PRT was one of the first companies I know of to institute regular reporting sessions to the union and employees during non-bargaining years. This ensured that the employees in the union remained informed about the status of the company and allowed the company to obtain valuable input and suggestions from the union and employees.
What made PRT unique, in my view, was the commitment and loyalty of the senior people to the employees in the various operations. The fact that the employees felt a part of the organization is evidenced by the fact that, despite very tough negotiations in a number of years where there was little offered at the bargaining table, only one strike vote was ever taken.
Pat Gallivan
former labor relations lawyer
Lawson Lundell Lawson & McIntosh
(ex-Davis & Co.)
Charlie and I did team building sessions all over B.C. and they have provided many memories. One of the most vivid is Tom Harvie drinking a beer in about 10 seconds after the session at his nursery -- open participation was not his style. Then there was the Campbell River session where there was great fear and tension, but everyone conducted themselves fine. In one of the breakout groups we talked about being unable to keep people in the technical function and I asked about the orientation program that they put people through. The answer was: "What's an orientation program?" And there was Josie up in Red Rock. When I tossed my hotel room key up in the air for 'heads or tails,' she said: "I'll take the key with you in the room." For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless. And there was the brainstorming session up north where we were talking about diversification and someone said "bananas" and someone else said "that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard" -- so much for open and imaginative brainstorming!
Sandy MacIver
K.A. MacIver & Associates Inc. |