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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 BCBUSINESS 57 BCBUSINESS.CA political," decided to go back to school after the Tories were voted out of office. He entered the international executive program at private French university INSEAD. From there, he held high- level roles in the U.S. with com- panies like Alcan Aluminum and Quadrem—a mining pro- curement firm he co-founded and sold to software giant SAP—before heading back to his home province, eventually settling in as CEO of Coquitlam- based Weatherhaven in 2008. "They were doing about $10 million in revenue with a really good product and an inter- national reputation," Castelli says of the company's status as a camp outfitter for mining and military operations. "I had a mix of mining and defence with the government, and a lot of what they do is government procure- ment–related, so it was a really good fit." In the mid-2010s, Weatherhaven went through what Castelli calls a downturn. "We rethought the whole business," he says. That meant outsourc- ing manufacturing and becoming more of a research and develop- ment outfit, with several shelter products focused on mobility. That was necessary because mili- tary deployment opera- tions were changing. "It was moving away from the days where they would send 3,000 people and put them in one place for two to five years," Castelli says. "Because the kind of people they're fighting, it's more like whack-a-mole— pop up over here, hit them over there, pop up again. You have to be very agile, nimble, mobile." Weatherhaven, which now has 140 staff, has developed 52 patents and earned some $600 million in contracts since 2017. "Ray has taken Weath- erhaven to a completely international marketplace," says Donald McInnes, a long-time energy and mining executive and current head of Vancouver's Sun Metals Corp. "He's changed the product mix substantially from just doing the mining camps and tem- porary shelters to mobile field hospitals and centres for the military, and things for NATO and the UN." Castelli obviously couldn't have predicted the COVID-19 and you can actually apply negative pressure to them to suck all the air out," he says. "And you recirculate in fresh air every two minutes, so it gets recycled and cleansed 30 times an hour, just like on airplanes." Weatherhaven completed that change to the product in six weeks and eventually built 20 new hospitals around the world, in places like Canada, Chile, Dubai, El Salvador and Greenland. "Our business jumped, but it was also nice to do some- thing to help," Castelli main- tains. "The bigger the viral load, eventually it's going to get past PPE. If we can keep that viral load low by cleaning and exchanging the air, it's much safer for frontline health-care workers." Although Castelli came back to B.C. for family reasons—"my wife had been following me to Paris, Montreal, New York, L.A. and then Dallas"—he recently moved down to Washington, D.C., to help Weatherhaven's corporate relations stateside. "He's very dedicated, cal- culating, thoughtful," McInnes says. "But daring and vision- ary in what he's done for the company and its customers and employees." Has that dedication found a permanent home in Weath- erhaven, or might Castelli make the move back to politics some day? "Politics is a young person's game," he says with a knowing chuckle. "I have a few friends involved here and there, but I haven't been actively involved for about 20 years." That sound is a bunch of Weatherhaven clients and employees breathing sighs of relief. –N.C. W H AT O T H E R C A R E E R M IG H T YOU H AV E H A D ? My childhood dream was to be a standup comic. Sadly, I didn't have the stage pres- ence or the talent... ummm…or the timing NA M E ON E T H I NG T H AT P E OP L E WOU L D B E S U R - P R I S E D T O L E A R N A B OU T YOU I've won a karaoke singing competition HOW WOU L D YOU DE S C R I B E YOU R L E A DE R S H I P ST Y L E ? Set tone at the top, own strategy, del- egate execution to great managers F U N FA C T S pandemic, but Weatherhaven was uniquely positioned to help. The company had a long- standing field hospital solution that it would sell a couple of each year. Castelli, who is of Italian heritage, saw what was happening in Italy early on, with people catching COVID in hospitals thanks to poor air ventilation. "We came up with the idea to take our existing hospitals and modify them, make them more like fallout shelters, where they become airtight TAKE COVER Castelli has brought success to mobile shelter maker Weatherhaven