Tana was lead to the work of building communities by focusing on individual dreams and strengths of people as a result of pursuing her own dreams. She arrived in British Columbia from Saskatchewan at the age of 19. "I started work as a dive tender and relief skipper on an underwater seafood harvesting boat. From the rough waters of ocean living and the hard life of working the boats, I began to not only fall in love with the ocean, but also the people who work hard and dream of better things both for themselves and their families". Tana believes that building entrepreneurs is a powerful way of building communities.
It was that vision that led her to a management position at the Steveston Harbour Authority, creating systems that helped diverse communities of harbour users thrive. “Our processes took an organization out of chaos and mis-management, and built a financially sustainable, future-focused and people-first system that worked for the community” Tana recalls. It was these early successes with re-structuring and re-vitalizing communities that led Tana to launch out on her own and create a company focused on building up communities of entrepreneurs. Process prevent politics. |
The Triumph & The Downfall
After a successful career making an impact in the fishing industry, and having two children, Tana decided to enter into the world of entrepreneurship in a bigger way. Together with her husband Randy, they founded Premier Building Products Ltd., a manufacturer and distributor of high-end, panelized, custom homes, and Premier Enterprises USA Inc., a general contracting firm based in Washington state. Within three years, their BC company grew from revenue of $50,000, to $1.5 million, and was one of the top 3 finalists for the 2001 BC Export Awards, Exporter of the year. Then, like the fishermen facing fisheries closures, Tana and Randy experienced their own ‘hurricane winds’ on September 11th, 2001 when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre in New York. The economy experienced a downturn and residential developers in the US (representing 100% of their customer base), ceased building whole subdivisions. The bottom fell out of the market. Despite efforts to re-tool and resurrect their business into new Canadian markets, the business was sold by 2005. “We had taken it as far as we could, but at the end of the day, we had built a business that was totally dependent on ourselves and on the whims of one singular market” Tana explained. Effective business systems design can shock proof your business. |
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Become a high performance team IT’S NOT YOU—IT’S YOUR SYSTEMS
In business, your SYSTEMS affect your OUTCOMES. The Possibility Process gives you X-ray vision into which systems are working effectively and which need improvement to take your business to the next level. Click on the book image to learn more about the book or click the button to buy it on Amazon. |
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