May 2017
In this issue
In business, like life, timing can be everything. Late last decade, Corvus Energy co-founder Brent Perry and his partners were designing quiet-running electrical hybrid systems for the luxury yacht market. At the time, lithium battery manufacturers didn’t make anything larger than what was needed to power a car, and the global shipping industry was just starting to delve into fully...
For his Grade 4 science fair project, Simon Pickup wanted to “blow something up.” His father, a self-taught engineer, urged him to build a hydrogen electrolyzer instead. Born and raised in North Vancouver, Pickup eventually dropped out of high school to dive into creating hydrogen energy technology. In his early 20s, he returned to academia, studying economics through Harvard Extension...
Last summer, after Elon Musk unveiled the Model 3, Tesla Inc.’s most affordable car to date, the rush of almost 350,000 pre-orders got Brian Paes-Braga’s attention. The kicker: an expected surge in demand for lithium ion batteries. Global sales of plug-in electric automobiles hit more than 770,000 units last year, according to the Electric Vehicle World Sales Database. Although such...
Bruce Gray took his first stab at the residential solar panel business back in 2010, but he quickly learned that such systems suffer from a well-deserved reputation for being unreliable energy generators. “Sales were slow, so we surveyed our customers,” says the founder and chief technology officer of SunPump Solar Inc. from his Qualicum Beach office. Their wish—more reliability at...
John Kenna began his career designing and making cool high-tech stuff, only to shift to the less sexy but equally vital world of manufacturing. In 1992, the American mechanical engineer joined Ballard Power Systems, which was putting Vancouver on the map as the global centre for hydrogen fuel cell technology. The pace of innovation was furious, he recalls. Kenna eventually...
Job titles at Enbala Power Networks Inc. are decidedly playful: simplicity seeker, planetary activist and Mr. Roboto, the latter ascribed to president and CEO Bud Vos. These are handles you might expect to see on Lululemon Athletica Inc.’s career page, not on the website of a company aiming to keep the world’s electric grids in a constant state of reliable...
The new 98-seat Hendricks Resto-Lounge occupies the Westin Grand hotel’s upper lobby overlooking Library Square in downtown Vancouver. What’s a resto-lounge? It’s a 1,300-square-foot space with a cocktail bar and a full-service restaurant, plus live music or a DJ twice a week. Vancouver’s Nordstrom Pacific Centre now has an incubator project to showcase and support new designers. Called the Lab, it’s...
Power Up, May 2 and 3Previously called the Human Resource Management Association (HRMA), the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources of British Columbia and Yukon (CPHR BC & YK) is holding its annual HR conference and trade show in Vancouver. In between networking and socializing, check out four keynote speakers and 24 breakout sessions on topics ranging from the straightforward (Managing the...
A fixture in B.C. for more than a century, Mayberry Farms is a true family operation. Cory May and his older siblings Derek and Melissa have been working on the farm for as long as they could remember, and it was their parents Randy and Joy who turned the berry crop farm into the success it is today. In 2014...