Greg Yuel

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing; -Tuckman’s Stages of Development. A few years ago I described how we had a few companies at the front-end of that evolutionary cycle and that they were going to gather themselves over the next few years in order to get themselves toward the back end of that evolutionary cycle. Well, we did, and they did. We did it by working together in many groups large and small. And, because of our examples especially in ClearTech, and certainly within Caron and Panther, we know what excellent performance looks like and we know what it takes to achieve it. Kreos was firing on all cylinders this entire year and what a thrill that was for everyone. It joins the ranks of those performing at a high level.

Kreos and Long Lake both enjoyed excellent streamlining of operations and both found wonderful Controllers to help settle their organization and push through the “Norming” stage. CanGas’ process of “Norming” required many changes in Management, but our bread & butter of ‘exceptional customer service’ by everyone at the branches remained constant. So, the result was that senior Management changes provided a service to the branches as opposed to being disruptive to them. Terris and Cara took responsibility for this organization in a manner I have seen only a few times in my career. Round Table and Adventure Destinations continue “Forming” as the emerging leaders get in their groove. Both remain excellent in their service delivery and time & experience is all they need going forward.

The teamwork in each Operating Company with the help of their sister companies was possible because of our investments in people and process described in last year’s profile. The strategic planning described last year demonstrated its effectiveness as good people understood the contribution they were making to the overall outcome. PIC Investment Group Inc is supposed to connect the dots between companies and be the anti-red-tape committee and help deliver opportunities that take years to come to fruition so our leaders and their teams can focus on their operation. As a Family Office, we own Operating Companies and place equity investments. We provide financial services, HR support, M&A search/ execution, identification & closing expertise, payroll & benefits, Board governance & strategic planning for our companies. Our effort to bring people together manifest itself in some of our donations to Wanuskewin, SREDA and SIIT as well as hosting the best Minority Equity Investment Summit and the best PIC Leader’s Retreat ever. Much of the success of the PIC Leader’s Retreat goes to Laura and her team at ADI that hosted us in multiple operations with adventures second to none. In honour of the enormous contribution Cara makes and our gratitude for the responsibility Cara takes for the health of our culture and our people it was with great delight that we formally added her to the PIC Group senior leadership team completing our “SixPAC” of portfolio management services to each Operating Company and every minority equity investment that we are responsible for. All of my effort at work this year was spent on initiatives that will hopefully be announcements of a few of our Operating Company leaders in subsequent years. There was a lot of effort, but that is how it is supposed to go. Together, Cara Petrovicz, Craig Bell, Hugh MacGowan, Laurie Dmytryshyn, Terris Chorney and I try to help people who enjoy autonomy and follow entrepreneurial instincts to grow their business and themselves. We work on opportunities that take a long time to come to fruition, if they do at all. This leaves our Operating Company leaders to focus on the near term. Meanwhile, they know that when we deliver something to them it’s because we care about their company and we think it’s right for them. Together we grow.