Membertou's star shines

Page 30

Good communication between chief and council, administration and band membership is the foundation on which Membertou First Nation has built its business success, said Membertou CEO Bernd Christmas. The First Nation, located in Sydney, N.S., has business ventures in a wide variety of sectors, from retail to food services to information technology.

Membertou is currently partnering with Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest aerospace companies, on a bid to supply the Canadian military with 28 helicopters to replace the aging Sea King fleet.

"This contract is worth $4- to $5-billion, so it's a big project for us now," Christmas said.

"We're teamed up with Fujitsu Consulting, and Fujitsu is one of the leading information technology consulting companies, again, in the world, and there we're seeking business in the defence business but also in the health sector. We're partnered with Grant Thornton, the accounting firm, to actively seek business involving other First Nations, whether they need financial type services or accounting services. We're partnered with SNC Lavalin to look at project management opportunities, environmental opportunities, logistics opportunities."

The First Nation has also partnered with Clearwater Fine Foods, one of Canada's largest fishing companies, in the harvesting, processing and marketing of seafood products under the Membertou name. Another partnership, with Sodhexo, sees Membertou involved in providing food services to the oil and gas industry.

"And we do have some retail operations ... It's very diverse," Christmas said.

Membertou was the first Aboriginal community to achieve ISO 9001 2000 certification, an internationally recognized set of standards that help businesses improve their efficiency and maintain the quality of their products, services and relationships.

Membertou's business successes were recognized during the national conference of the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO) held in Whitehorse from Sept. 16 to 19, when the Membertou Corporate Division was selected by CANDO members as this year's Economic Developer of the Year.

"It was very exciting, and a very, very proud feeling that our community was being recognized by other communities across the country as on the leading edge, for this year, anyway," Christmas said. "And joining some of the other past winners was pretty exciting. It was a lot of fun, and just generally a proud feeling that we were being recognized by our peers for all the work that our council has done and our staff has done and the community has done."

One of the First Nation's newest ventures is a 47,000 sq. ft. conference and convention centre being built in Membertou's new commercial park and slated to open in June 2004. When completed, the centre will accommodate up to 900 people in a facility that combines state-of-the-art services with a design celebrating Mi'kmaq culture.

"The idea is to bring convention-type business to Cape Breton Island, to Membertou, and get into that line of services."

Christmas credits Membertou's success to a trio of factors-good government, a strong administration, and a supportive and involved community.

"I think, just generally speaking, we have a good government. Our chief and council is very cognizant of the fact that it has both a social role to its membership, i.e., to make sure that the well being of the community is taken care of, but it also has a business role, and those two shouldn't be conflicting. So they understand that. And tie that in with a very strong administration with a lot of capacity that has allowed us to utilize that capacity to move on our various ventures. We have people that have worked for both government and the private sector, so it's a very well-rounded staff that we have," he said.

"And then I think thirdly ... is the community really supports the administration and also supports the government in its goals, and therefore they are sort f in the information chain. So they understand what is going on constantly, so it's not a situation where there's community members wondering what's happening with the Membertou government or the Membertou business arm or the Membertou staff itself. Everyone kind of knows what generally is happening within all three functions of the band. So I think that's that key. It's a very strong community of 1,000 people who are cognizant of not only their rights but the opportunities that they have."

The results of the First Nation's economic development successes can be seen in the improvements that have been made within the community, Christmas explained.

"We've been able to build quite a number of apartment units. We've undertaken a very aggressive paving and water and sewer program upgrades. We've built a brand new school that goes from the daycare level to Grade 6. We provide daycare services to band members five days a week, expanded hours ... we have a brand new office complex that we've been able to construct for provincial/territorial organizations to have their head offices in Membertou. We've built a brand new health centre, built a new police station for the RCMP, built a lot of new homes on the reserve and added more roads within the community itself, more entrances as well. So it's sort of a lot of infrastructure that we would have had to wait quite a number of years if we had followed the Indian Affairs process or government process to get on those lists. So we've been able to, with our own source revenues, to speed those things up."

In addition to the physical improvements, members of the community have also benefited by increases in employment and training opportunities.

"From the employment perspective, we're pretty proud of the fact that anyone that wants to work at Membertou can work. Five years ago, six, seven years ago, we had probably an unemployment level of around 90 per cent. And today, we probably have an employment level of at least 90 per ent. So it's switched completely around." The First Nation also has an internal human resource development program that allows members to train in any of the sectors in which Membertou is involved.