BCBusiness

36 BCBusiness FEBRUARy 2018 COURTESy LESLiE FOREST PRODUCTS S ometimes places just have the perfect name. Take the West Kootenay settlement of Thrums, for example. The word "thrum" refers to a continuous humming sound, and anyone who has made the journey along Highway 3A between Castlegar and the region's most populous city, Nelson, will often hear exactly that. Kalesniko- Lumber Co., a member of the Nelson Cham- ber of Commerce, has been making noise in these parts since 1949, when now- CEO Ken Kalesniko-'s great-uncle Koozma started a bush mill with his two brothers. Back in those days, the three men would set the mill up where the logs were instead of bring- ing wood to a set location. "They worked six days a week, came home Saturday night out of the bush, got their clothes cleaned, washed, and back to work Sunday night to start Monday morning," Kalesniko- says. By the time current chief executive graduated from high school and rolled up his sleeves, the mill had a per- manent home in tiny Thrums (conveniently located across the street from the local Žre hall). In 1982 he helped intro- duce Kalesniko- Lumber to the modern era by leaving his job on the mill •oor to handle sales. Soon the younger Kalesniko- convinced his father (Koozma's nephew, Peter Jr.) to change the way the company did business. "A lot of people were taking our lum- ber and making value- added products with it—so, siding and panelling and things like that," Kales- niko- recalls. "So I thought, 'Well, we need to be doing this, because it would just take our lumber further.'" In 2000, that thinking led to the creation of Kootenay Innovative Wood, a plant that makes softwood products. In 2011—after the passing of Peter Jr. in 2006œKalesniko- Lumber invested $18 million on new technoloŸy that would allow it to keep making specialty items the big mills weren't producing. The company now employs some 150 people and churns out roughly 100 mil- lion board feet of wood per year, or enough to construct about 10,000 houses, Kales- niko- estimates. To succeed as a medium- sized mill in B.C.'s southeast region, Kalesniko- Lumber has needed some help. Among the more than 30 urban companies it works with is Delta-based Leslie Forest Products Ltd., another family business that has spanned three generations. Launched in 1972, Leslie has about 50 sta- and is run by brothers Ron and Dave San- gara, as well as Ron's wife, Jas. The Leslie-Kalesniko- relationship is one of mutual convenience: both parties take turns acting as supplier and customer, with Leslie providing lath (thin, •at strips of wood often used to form the foundations of the plaster in walls or the tile in roofs) and dunnage (pieces of wood used to keep cargo in position). In return, Leslie receives about half a million board feet in specialty items annually from Kalesniko-'s mill. Both companies do extensive trade with Asian countries, partic- ularly Japan and China, but they know that working with other B.C. businesses is crucial. "In an industry where our marketplace is the world, urban and rural is just part of the equation," says Ron Sangara, president of Leslie Forest Products. "Most sawmills are located outside of the Lower Mainland, so we deal with many rural businesses. Where the world is our marketplace, rural and urban businesses are essen- tially neighbours." Kalesniko- agrees. "It's a big circle, so to speak," he says. "We all make up the spokes in the wheel that make this province go 'round." And those that make it hum. —N.C. on the Map KAMLOOPS SOFT- WARE MAKER lightshiP works HELPS THE TOWN OF elkforD MANAGE iTS PUBLiC PROJECTS E lkford may be home to just 2,500 residents, but like any community, it needs to keep track of a variety of assets. Since 2015, the picturesque East Koote- nay district municipality has been doing that with software from Lightship Works Inc. The Kamloops-based company, founded in 2011, o-ers a cloud-based platform that helps people with Želd operations management. "It lets them take all of that infor- mation that is coming out of a Želd operation, whether that is an industrial site like a mine or a gas plant or an emergency situation, and navigate it to Žnd the things that are going to help them make better decisions," says Jaethan Reichel, CEO of the 13-employee Kamloops Cham- ber of Commerce member. Lightship Works, whose clien- tele includes mining com- panies, emergency services agencies and First Nations as well as local governments, has more than 50 customers in Canada, South Africa and the U.S. Previously, Elkford relied on a single online map that the provider had to update, explains Heather Potter, the municipality's geographic information systems (GIS) technician. "Lightship Works allows us to have a huge number of customized maps as well as user groups, and it Family trees WiTH DEEP ROOTS iN THEiR COMMUNiTiES, kalesnikoff lumBer AND leslie forest ProDuCts PROFiT FROM WORKiNG TOGETHER urban.rural. LoGGED In Delta-based Leslie Forest Products opened in 1972

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