'It's an exciting market to be in' - Blair Wilson talks to The Province newspaper in part III of our weekly profiles of BC resource workers
BC construction market "exciting to be in"
This week we talk with Blair Wilson, project manager for G Wilson Construction, a Vancouver company founded by his father Gordon that takes an old-school approach to carpentry and home building
Postmedia News: You build homes of exceptional size and architecture, including many that will eventually qualify as heritage properties. What drives your decision to support this particular market?
Blair Wilson: For us, from a business point of view, it's an exciting market to be in. Every building is different. It can be a very traditional heritage building. It can be a very modern building that's on the leading edge of structural and interior design. We do a lot of renovation work, a lot of maintenance work. Every day, there's something new. It's non-repetitive, which I think helps us retain employees. They're not stuck doing the same thing every day.
PN: Gord Wilson's decision many years ago to focus on finer aspects of carpentry seems pivotal to the company's growth and development. Could you talk about that?
BW: The company started as a small renovation company and evolved to where we are today. We're not focused on the commercial side of the business, or multi-residential, or anything like that. We focus on that one product rather than three or four.
PN: What advantages does the emphasis on high-end carpentry skills give you?
BW: We are actually training our own people. We bring them through the whole apprenticeship system, starting with first-year apprentices. Most have been with us for 10-20 years. Our first employee has now been with us for 33 or 34 years. It's almost an old-school mentality - they're well-rounded tradesmen. They can do a little bit of everything. Of course they have strengths in different areas, but we want all the guys to be well rounded.
PN: How many different trades do you deploy on a project?
BW: As far as individual trades go, there have to be at least 50 that bring a home together. Right now we have a house on the go, it's about 9,000 square feet and there are 60 people on it, of all different trades. In-house we have our own labourers, carpenters, foremen, superintendents, and then the office has the project managers, coordinators, all of our financial staff.
PN: Do you bring in finishing materials from international suppliers?
BW: The biggest aspect of that, using the port, would be all of our stone orders. When we're doing business for some of our larger homes, and we have a large quantity of stone coming in by container from Italy or Portugal or wherever it's coming from, that happens on a monthly basis.
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