Aaron Rokstad
CEO, Rokstad Power Corp.
A
aron Rokstad picked a bad time to
start his own powerline construc-
tion business. It was October 2008,
just as the global financial crisis was
unfolding, when Rokstad took a $100,000
home equity loan and decided to branch
out on his own. He left his job at Quanta
Services, the largest electric power services
contractor in North America, which in 2001
bought a company his father had started,
Allteck Line Contractors. Rokstad spent six
years at Quanta until deciding, as his father
had, that he wanted to build something of his
own. Launching a business during the worst
credit crunch in generations turned out to be
a crash course in financing for Rokstad and
his team. "It taught us how to get by without
it," he says.
His startup company, Empirica Energy
Inc., focused on both civil works and
erecting power lines for utilities. Rokstad
started it with a partner, but after three
years they decided to part ways. As a
result of that restructuring in October
2011, the focus was solely on power
line work and Rokstad Power Corp.
was formed.
Today, Rokstad Power's clients
include major utilities such as BC
Hydro and AltaLink and private com-
panies such as
SNC Lavalin, Rogers and
Imperial Metals. The company employs
more than 600 people and is expected to
generate close to $200 million in revenues
this year, driven by an aggressive expan-
sion into new markets across Western
Canada and parts of the U.S.
Rokstad's diversification strategy turned
out to be a good one, especially after the
B.C. government decided to audit BC Hydro,
which Rokstad said put a halt on new work
and "decimated" the overall line construc-
tion industry. Rokstad believes the secret to
being a successful entrepreneur is to be flex-
ible and never satisfied with the status quo.
"You can't change what your customers are
doing," he says. "You have to adapt." —B.B.
bcbusiness.ca OctOber 2014 BCBusiness 75
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