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/1484213
T here are three things that Chris Atchison claims are "in his blood": fishing, hockey and, of course, curling. The British Columbia Con- struction Association ( BCCA) president and CEO saw both his parents curl competitively, and he coached his own children to play college hockey. He started curling at nine years old him- self, going on to represent B.C. twice—in 2001 and 2007—at the Brier, Canada's annual men's curling championship. "Curling was the passion that won out during my peak competitive years," he recalls. "And I continued that pas- sion wherever I lived in the province." Although Atchison con- tends that he has lived in every region of B.C., he grew up in Prince Rupert. He remembers participating in a local tourna- ment during his earliest days curling and scoring an eight- ender—a perfect score—that won his team a trip to Hawaii, sponsored by CP Air (now Air Canada). But he didn't start playing the sport competitively until he qualified for junior championships in high school. W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Chris Atchison, who calls himself a "servant leader," took over as CEO of the BCCA in 2017, two years after joining the non- profit organization as its provincial coordinator of workforce development. The BCCA advocates for construction companies on issues such as standard practices and prompt payment. Prior to his appointment, Atchison spent 15 years as COO of the Association for Service Providers for Employability and Career Training. He says it was the BCCA's initiatives to fill skill short- ages in the province that drew him in: "I've always been driven to help people find their potential."—R.R. ROCK AND ROLL Chris Atchison has twice competed at the Brier, Canada's annual men's championship Hammer Time Competition slips into BCCA president and CEO Chris Atchison's spare time by Rushmila Rahman O FF T H E C LO C K ( quality time ) as the fifth player (or the sub), and he remembers it being an "absolute dream come true"— even though B.C. missed the playoffs with a 4–7 record. Calling on fifth players to play throughout the game was less common back then. Of course, there is just one answer to the million-dollar question: Who is the only fifth player to have competed in the 2001 Brier? It's Atchison. "And then, because we won the game that I played in, I think that I'm pretty much the NIK WEST NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 BCBUSINESS 87 Before Atchison's career in sports, he worked with nets in a different way. Born into a com- mercial fishing family, Atchison landed his first job as a fisher- man at 17 years old. Working on and off for 10 years helped him pay his way through UBC, where he studied international relations, political science, eco- nomics and history. At the time, he was also playing junior varsity hockey with the UBC Thunderbirds. But he didn't actively step behind the bench until his own kids enrolled in minor hockey. He began coaching in earnest around 2004 and continued to do so until 2018, when his daughter graduated from the BC Hockey Midget AAA program. What always remained a constant was Atchison's love for curling. The first time he at- tended the Brier, he was invited