Rodney joined our board of directors in 2024.

Corrie joined our board of directors in 2024.

Shawn joined our board of directors in 2024.

Brandon joined our board of directors in 2024.

I’m a proud Port Alberni resident for the last 26 years , I’m in a long term relationship with Deborah Kruks and have 3 children but only 2 Grandchildren so far.
I was born in Winnipeg Manitoba in June of 1954 making me 67 right now. I’ve had a varied and quite eclectic life and to paraphrase the immortal Jerry Garcia “what a long strange trip it’s been”.

In the summer of 1970 when I was 16 I came to Victoria to visit an Uncle, I knew right then that there had been a terrible mistake made and that I was never meant to be in Winnipeg Manitoba but belonged on Vancouver Island.

Even though up to that point I had a been a good student I couldn’t get Vancouver Island out of my brain. I quit school in Grade 10 and hitchhiked to BC in January of 1972.
Fortunately I had some outdoor skills and somehow survived that first winter living in a pup tent North of Campbell River and then with a group of mainly US draft dodgers on the North Island. It was a pretty severe winter.

In the spring I managed to get a job planting trees, which progressed to logging and the logger lifestyle. I was married to the first of 3 wives in January of 1976. I worked in various logging camps mainly around Vancouver Island. In 1977 I was badly injured in a logging accident and spent about 1 year in the hospital.

After I recovered I tried logging again but had lost the ability to step up onto logs from my injuries. I eventually moved to the log booms and became the boss at a log sort in Gibson’s. I also had taken log scaling and had a log scaling license. 
Unfortunately I was involved in the party lifestyle with alcohol and drugs. My life began to spiral down. By 1984 I was divorced and heading toward the bottom rapidly. Somehow I managed to keep working. In 1986 I decided to go to UBC Forestry, I was accepted for some reason but only did 1 term as I was still partying. My life really went downhill after that and I was close to living on the street, very close! In 1987 I called AA and by the grace of God I met 2 men at my very first meeting that took me under their wing and made sure I stayed sober.
I’ve been sober since.

I did go back to school , BCIT Wood Products Manufacturing, and upon graduation got a job at Tolko Merritt as a sawmill foreman. I was there for 5 years but always wanted to be back on Vancouver Island. An opportunity came up to be a Superintendent at Field Sawmill in Courtenay which I took and got back to Vancouver Island. In 1995 I was hired by Wayne Coulson to manage his mill in Port Alberni. I worked there until 2012 as the General Manager of Coulson’s manufacturing operations, when I left and joined my current group at Trapa in the custom cut business.

We have worked closely with the Coulson’s and now the San group as well as the local suppliers and have become quite successful.

Due to or in spite of the life I’ve had I have great empathy for people and have a love for Port Alberni as both have helped me on my journey to where  I am today.

Chris joined our board of directors in 2024.

Nancy Wilmot was born and grew up on her family’s farm in rural Manitoba. She attended Brandon University on a full scholarship, took a year off to travel Europe, and upon returning transferred to University of Calgary where she pursued a BA in English & Political Science.

It was in Calgary that she met husband, David Zryd, who currently works as a Clinical Counsellor for the Nuu Chah Nulth Tribal Council. After several years living in California She and David returned to Canada in 1991 to start a family. They moved first to Tofino, and later to Port Alberni, with Nancy staying at home with their two children, Jonah and Annie. She began working with Shaw TV Port Alberni as an on-producer, a position that she continues to hold and enjoy.

In 2014 Nancy was named “Citizen Of The Year” at the Chamber of Commerce Excellence Awards, an award that was largely inspired by the community work she has done with Shaw, and the relationships she has formed with the city’s many community groups and organizations.