BCBusiness

July/August 2022 - The Top 100

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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I nterior designers spending their free time in the wild— poetic, isn't it? Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds, co-founders of local design firm Falken Reynolds, insist that there's some practi- cality to it, too. "I think there is a really strong connection with our love of the outdoors and our love of the indoors," says Falkenberg, who grew up on a chicken farm near Edmonton. "That curiosity of exploring, whether it's going out into nature or going into different cultures, helps us in how we explore what somebody wants in their home." Work trips always feature some sort of nature getaway for the duo, who have been hiking together for 16 years. And while they may be avid explorers looking for an adventure, they weren't expecting their most recent trip to Borneo to be as startling as it was. Scaling 4,000-metre Mt. Kinabalu is no light trek, but it's an even steeper climb when you're packed for tropi- cal beaches. "We started up to the summit at 2 a.m. and it was pouring rain, super windy, freezing," Falkenberg remem- bers of their last pre-pandemic excursion. "We got to the top with one other guy, Kelly took out his phone to take a photo, and of course it was raining so hard he dropped it. But we have a great photo of the other guy who was with us." Being away from civilization is a major draw for the cofound- ers, and so is the fact that hiking doesn't require a ton of gear: good shoes and a windbreaker usually get the job done. In fact, when climbing Mt. Inierie—a stratovolcano in Indonesia—the couple made an astute observa- tion: "We hired a local guide to take us up and while we were in our hiking boots, he was wear- ing flip flops." That hike was fairly short, compared to their three-day W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT With backgrounds in business and design, Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds launched their interior design firm Falken Reynolds in 2012. Based in Vancouver's Coal Harbour, the company's roster of clients includes private homes in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. The decision to focus on residential comes from their relationship with their clients, according to Falkenberg: "Understand- ing their personalities, how they live, and how they need their house to support their life, that's something we can dive really deep into with an individual or family. That's the part of it we re- ally enjoy and what got us started in the beginning." OPEN SPACES Interior designers Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds try to get ouside in their spare time Inside and Out Private home decorators Falkenberg and Reynolds trek to get away from it all by Rushmila Rahman O FF T H E C LO C K ( quality time ) trip through the ancient Batad Rice Terraces in the Philip- pines: "That was pretty in- tense," notes Reynolds. "First day was 21 kilometres, then we overnighted in a village, and the next day was another 15 to 20 kilometres." Back in 1994, Falkenberg had moved to Vancouver to study finance at Trinity West- ern University. He went on to teach business and marketing ADAM BLASBERG JULY/AUGUST 2022 BCBUSINESS 75

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