QXMC, the Klahoose First Nation development company, is looking for a new General Manager.
“We’ve retained a search company that has a great track record of looking for candidates of this type of size. In the past, we’ve used companies like Boyden that sort of do searches for Fortune 500 companies, and that’s not what we’re looking for,” explained Ron Buchhorn, Chairman of the QXMC Board.
“We’re looking for people who can run a diverse business. We’re probably talking about $140 million in revenue. It’s a big business mainly on the logging side, which is where most of the revenue comes from, but it’s diverse in terms of logging, aquaculture, resorts, ecotours, our bear touring operations, and having a sensitivity to our owners and understanding their goals and how they’d like the company operated.”
Buchhorn is a former Vice President of Operations with Catalyst Paper, served as BC’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour for more than 3 years and was also a Vice President with the Worker’s Compensation Board of BC. For the past 15 years he has been a consultant for companies like WestJet, CIMS and to Paper Excellence (formerly Catalyst) operations in Pictou (Nova Scotia), Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) and Howe Sound Pulp and Paper.
CC: Why isn’t your hat in the ring for becoming the new General Manager?
RB: “Well, I’m 71 years old. I ran a two billion dollar pulp and paper company in my past. I retired at 55 with the goal of becoming a very good golfer and being a general manager at 71 doesn’t allow me to pursue those other things that I like to do in life. I’m an avid motorcyclist. My wife and I travel internationally as much as we can. I usually go to Europe every September for at least a month. I’m not able to do that this year because I’m fulfilling the acting role as GM, but I have to say the next GM that steps into this role will be amazed at the management experience and depth that we’ve managed to bring to QXMC, people like Paul Muskie in the aquaculture area.”
CC: I notice there’s a lot of aquaculture happening in Squirrel Cove.
RB: “We have a number of aquaculture tenures and the most exciting piece of business that we’re doing right now is we’re growing the scallop business. I think last year we bought a hundred thousand scallop seed that were about a year into their growth cycle. So, we’re actually harvesting them this year.”
“We are in the process of purchasing 500,000 seed. We’re actually taking the young scallops, growing them in Squirrel Cove, and then moving them over to Talbot Cove, where the water is deeper and more conducive to second year growth. So that’s really exciting.”
“Then, of course, we work with Erik Lyon in terms of clam digging and oyster picking off our tenures.”
“We do have geoduck tenures that haven’t yielded as much as we would have liked. So they’re still down there, they’re growing, but we don’t know how many there are. We’ll find out when we send divers down there to have a look.”
“The agriculture business is quite exciting and it provides employment for the Klahoose members and we do lease some of our tenures to a company called Cascadia Seaweed. They’re actually growing seaweed for both food and agricultural purposes (fertilizer). So that’s the aquaculture business in a nutshell.”
Last week Cortes Currents looked at the renovations underway at Klahoose Gorge Harbour, and the Squirrel Cove project (which will consist of a gas station, convenience store, 35 RV sites and some cottages by the ocean).
Klahoose Forestry is waiting for the fire season to end.
RB: ”We have a logging manager, Josh Hiebert, who’s amazing. We have the tenures up at Toba Inlet, which you’re probably aware of and we recently changed the management of that forestry tenure from a private company to hiring our own forestry manager, who’s done an amazing job of developing more profitability for Klahoose First Nation.”
CC: Do you have any news from the Klahoose Wilderness Resort?
We have two great managers, Peter Bridgeman and Maciej Szarecki up at the resort. We’re in our third year of operation. Last year we developed it into a reputation of being a high end exclusive resort. It’s an Indigenous experience for the guests that visit there. And this year we’ve ramped it up even more and we’re receiving accolades from a number of travel magazines and people who rate resorts like ours.
“We’ve been rated in the top 15 small resorts of the world and a lot of that is attributable to the First Nation staff that we have working there. We have members of the Klahoose First Nation and the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation working there. They do a lot of storytelling. They teach the guests how to carve, how to weave hats and baskets, take them on ecotourism tours where there are whales and eagles. Guests look at the waterfalls and beaches of Toba Inlet and while they’re doing that, the guides explain their culture. It’s very well received by our guests.”
“AFAR magazine rated us number one resort I think it was in Canada, but, they compared us to the Banff Springs Hotel and some of these large institutions, which I really wasn’t as impressed with as when we were rated one of the top 15 small resorts in the world, which really compared us to the same types of of resorts But with different themes, as far as I know, we’re the only resort in that top 15 that provides a totally Indigenous experience.”
CC: That’s probably why you got number one, because you’ve got a special niche.
RB: “We do have a niche and we’re very proud of that because QXMC is owned by the Klahoose First Nation.”
“That’s been very attractive to people from Holland, Germany, the UK, Japan and Australia. We have people from all over the world and they’re just blown away by the experience that they’re treated to up there. We have great chefs, great employees, great management.”
CC: Is there anything you would like to say to people applying to be the next General Manager of QXMC?
RB: “We’ve got a lot of depth. This is a job that somebody’s going to get and will be extremely blessed with the management talent that they, he or she, has to work with.”
Top photo credit: The entrance to Toba Inlet – courtesy QXMC
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