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.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1477631
E N T R E P R E N E U R O F T H E Y E A R 2 0 2 2 56 BCBUSINESS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 Still, it's pretty hard to not be impressed with what Nicola has been able to do with the eponymous wealth manage- ment firm he's run for some 28 years, even over Zoom. From when he founded the firm in 1994 to 2000, it grew from $80 million in assets to a little over $200 million. Eight percent a year—nothing to sneeze at, but not enough for Nicola to be impressed. "I realized that in order for us to really move in the market- place, we'd have to go fee-based as opposed to commission- based, and we'd have to offer a bigger universe of assets," he recalls. Nicola Wealth started looking at real estate, mort- gages and private assets, and has since grown to some $12.5 billion in assets—or a growth rate of 20 percent a year. Today, the company has some 400 employees, around 300 of which are in its home base of Vancouver. Is the next John Nicola somewhere in that group? Maybe. Even though the 71-year-old says that "I really like what I do and think I can still do it pretty well" and "it would appear that people want me to hang around," he also admits that he's thought about who might be next. "There's two possibilities," riffs Nicola—who last won the Pacific Region Entrepreneur Of The Year award in 2011—about his succession plans. One would be to reduce activity in operations and bring in a new CEO, "ideally an internal per- son." In that scenario, Nicola would move to a role as an executive chair on the board. He'd still have an active involve- ment in the company, but not on a day-to-day basis. "The other model is similar to how Joe Segal operated, or how Jimmy Pattison and War- ren Buffet operate now," says Nicola. "They all are or were in their 90s and by all measure- ments doing a really good job in the CEO role. And yet, they're putting at risk the very people that might have been their suc- cessors 20 years ago. Because how long do those people really want to wait?" Nicola insists he doesn't know exactly who that next person might be, but he does have in mind some qualities he'd like to see in them. "I started out with the back- ground of an insurance sales- man and I've acquired some expertise over a certain period. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none," he admits. "Going forward, maybe it's time to look for people that specialize in a particular area." A word of advice for any would-be successors: you're probably going to want to show up to the office at least a few times a week.—N.C. W I N N E R Curtis Braber C E O , B E P O W E R E Q U I P M E N T B E Power Equipment's roots in Abbotsford are older than many tall trees. Braber Equipment was founded in 1969 by Bill Braber to provide farmers with the tools to do their jobs. In 1991, his son Nick created BE Pressure Supply and became Canada's largest manufacturer of pressure washers. That's about the time when the third generation was brought in. Curtis Braber started sweeping the floors and stacking the shelves at BE when he was 11 years old. "I was nice, cheap labour," he remembers with a laugh. "They'd have the work truck pick me up and drive me to the facility while most kids were at the playground." Eventually, Braber moved through virtually every part of the business, from assembling equipment to stints in the product development, sales and account- ing departments. But his favourite part of the job was and still is getting excited about new products. In 2018, after having taken over from his father, Braber re- named the company to BE Power Equipment to better reflect the business's changing product line, including air compressors, generators and water pumps. And while the company is still based in Abbotsford, it's also grown beyond that, with some 400 employees across North America. Around 170 of these people are at the home base, with the rest split across facilities in Ontario, Minnesota, Oregon, Florida, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Braber thinks BE is "still in a growth trajectory" and is excited about what's coming next. "We continue to develop new equipment and stay on the cutting edge of change," he says. "The world is going greener, there's a heavy push on product development, lithium ion. We hope to be the first to market with a battery powered pressure washer." "We continue to develop new equipment and stay on the cutting edge of change. The world is going greener, there's a heavy push on product development, lithium ion. We hope to be the first to market with a battery powered pressure washer."