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Achievement: Board of Trade hands out awards at gala dinner attended by hundreds of community leaders
Dave MacLean
Telegraph-Journal
Nov 27, 2008 
Cindy Wilson/Telegraph-Journal
The winners of the Emerging Enterprise award are Marilyn Singh and Dave Veale of Vision Coaching.
SAINT JOHN - The Port City's business community honoured some of its major players Wednesday night as the Saint John Board of Trade hosted its annual Outstanding Business Achievement Awards.
More than 500 business and community leaders attended the gala dinner at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre. The finalists were selected by an independent judging panel based on factors that included sales growth, innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing, human resources, community relations, environmental initiatives and other achievements.
"It's always a fantastic event because we get a chance to honour our own," said Board of Trade chairman Michael Barry. "From the self-made small entrepreneur to the large corporations who provide jobs and innovation, they all contribute to the community. "It's a great way for us as a non-profit membership to support them and recognize them. There are a lot of unsung heroes in the community and this a way to recognize them. It's a great celebration and a way for the community to say thanks."
Jacques Whitford Ltd., Lorneville Mechanical Contractors Ltd. and Vision Coaching were announced as major winners during Wednesday's event, joining three previously announced winners. Jenny Scott was named winner of the Young Entrepreneur Award, while Canaport LNG took home the Big Heart Award and Bob Manning was named winner of the Chair's Award.
Jacques Whitford, the winner in the Business Excellence category, is an internationally recognized leader in engineering, sustainability, environmental and earth sciences solutions, with 45 offices across North America and internationally. The company was founded in Halifax in 1972, with the Saint John office established in 1975. Saint John is home to the corporate executive office of the company and is the headquarters for its New Brunswick operations. About 190 of the company's 1,800 employees worldwide are employed in New Brunswick, 67 of them in Saint John.
The company's commitment to offer workplace benefits that set the standard for employees and their families has resulted in Jacques Whitford's being recognized repeatedly as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers and Top 10 Family Friendly Employers.
Over the past two years, Jacques Whitford has invested in joint ventures, partnerships and affiliations to provide additional expertise, open new markets and provide additional capacity in order to position the company for growth in the energy sector. As evidence of its excellence in the energy field, the firm has been involved in the only two new refineries proposed in Canada over the past 20 years, and the major pipelines in Atlantic and Western Canada and the North. In 2007, Jacques Whitford became the first major environmental consulting firm in North America to become carbon neutral.
Lorneville Mechanical Contractors was named winner of the Entrepreneurial Achievement category. Styve and Martin Dumouchel took over the company in 1999 after having spent many summers working for their father and uncle, who had founded the company more than 20 years earlier. Styve and Martin were knowledgeable about the mechanical service work side of the business, but when they took over the company, they recognized they would need to expand outside of their core business in order to grow.
In 2001 they obtained further industry reach when they were joined by a third partner, Carl Tremblay, who brought expertise in hydro and gas turbines. With 18 full-time and 150-300 seasonal employees, a key factor in Lorneville Mechanical's success is that the owners are hands-on and on-site, unusual in a company of this size. This gives their customers the best of both worlds, the resources of a large general contractor with the personalized service of a small company. By being on-site, the owners are able to offer timely on-site solutions for any issues that arise during a construction project.
Vision Coaching was named the winner in the Emerging Enterprise category. Dave Veale established Vision Coaching - a business focused solely on business/leadership coaching - when the management consulting company he already owned received repeated requests for coaching services. What intrigued him was the high calibre of people asking for these services. Determining that this was a good business opportunity, he and partner Marilyn Singh established Vision Coaching and invested in the best coaching certification program possible, both eventually earning a graduate certificate in executive coaching. They began in 2005 with one coach, one service (one-to-one coaching) and one client willing to pay for the service. Today, Vision Coaching has a network of seven certified coaches across the country offering four core services, and has worked with clients all over the world from Saint John to New Mexico to Australia. The three full-time employees in Saint John are ultimately responsible for the strategic direction, marketing and delivery of the bulk of the services. Scott, who owns the Ambiance Day Spa in Market Square, won the award that recognizes young business leaders (30 years and under) just beginning to make their mark.
Canaport LNG was honoured for its corporate generosity and community involvement, Manning, a former Board of Trade chairman, was recognized for his achievements within, and contributions to, the community.
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