B u s i n e s s S e r v i c e s
A
s one would expect from a
successful insurance broker,
Andrew Kemp has made a
career out of minimizing
risk. In his 20s, Kemp followed his
father into the insurance business,
working his way up the managerial
ranks to eventually become senior
vice-president at Aon, a major multi-
national insurance broker. "I was a
bit of a golden boy," he says. "I could
do what I wanted."
But what he wanted was to start
his own business—and so, in 2004,
he quit his job at Aon and, using his
life savings and an undisclosed bor-
rowed amount, acquired a stake in a
small local insurance brokerage with
a specialty in underwriting condo
developments. Ten years later, he
has built
CMW Insurance Services
Ltd. into an 84-person ¡rmµthat has
insured someµ1,300 buildings across
the Lower Mainland, with annual
revenue of around $40 million.µThe
decision to go it on his own has been
rewarding. "The big win is the lack
of frustration," he says of his new,
more entrepreneurial career track.
"There's an ease to doing business
in this kind of environment."
—Jacob Parry
E O Y
T
imothy Germain got his start driving school buses, but he always had
his eye on bigger vehicles–and bigger plans. At the age of 23, Germain
got his licence to drive semi-trailers, bought his own truck and began
driving short-haul routes around the Lower Mainland. By his late
30s, with a young family in Coquitlam, he saw an opportunity for "a surplus of
growth and profit," as he puts it, but he was unable to find a partner to share
the costs of starting up: "None had the confidence nor risk-taking gumption to
jump on board." So with one dispatcher and one truck, he began T-Lane Nation
in 2000, putting up his house as collateral. Taking those risks, he notes, "paved
the T-Lane road" for his eventual success. The company–which specializes in
moving unwieldy or dangerous materials, like power generators or cranes, to
remote corners of the province–has since grown into a 250-person operation,
with 11 offices and six warehouses across Canada and clients ranging from BC
Hydro to the Department of National Defence. In 2014, T-Lane Nation had $45
million in annual revenue, which Germain hopes to grow to $100 million in five
years' time. –J.P.
R U N N E R † U P
t i m o t h y g e r m a i n
[ C E O , T† L A N E N AT I O N ]
54 BCBusiness OCTOBER 2015
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a n d r e w k e m p
[ P R E S I D E N T A N D C E O , C M W I N S U R A N C E S E R V I C E S LT D . ]
—Jacob Parry
t i m o t h y g e r m a i n
