Rotary: Guest Speaker - Diana Dilworth
Posted by Trudy Gallant
on Jun 7, 2012
.....for one of our largest local businesses..Pacific Coast Terminals...or PCT.
SPEAKER'S CORNER...MAY 30th, 2012
Our guest speaker this morning was Diana Dilworth, who is already well known to many of us for her work as a city councillor and her other community activities. Diana recently "came home" to work in Port Moody .. for one of our largest local businesses..Pacific Coast Terminals...or PCT.
Diana gave us some very interesting history of PCT..which orginally opened in New Westminster in 1929...handling western coal, grain, beets and apples for shipping. PCT then moved to Port Moody in 1959..after land was dredged to provide its current site. It still sits on entirely reclaimed land.
PCT reopened in 1960 and began to handle potash and coal. In the '80s, with the opening of Robert's Bank, they switched over to sulphur and Ethylic (spell check, anyone?) Glycol and brought back coal, as well.
Diana further advised us that sulphur comes as a liquid from the ground and is tumbled, dried and formed into
its well recognized yellow form that we can see at the PCT site. She explained that it is used in fertilizers and is shipped mainly to Asia and India from Port Moody. They handle about 100 ships per year at the site...a total of about 2 million tons annually.
One of our largest employers, PCT has about 80 employees and is very proud of both it safety record and its support for the community. The company has had over 6.5 years of operation with no work time-loss incidents. It has also given away $1,000,000 to 23 community groups including our local students, Share Society, Crossroads Hospice, Cadets and the Heart & Stroke Foundation..to name a few. Their employees performance evaluations include a question on how the employee plans to be invovled in their community.
Diana also spoke about the way the company address community questions and concerns..through newsletters, a community survey on waterfront industry and reponse to individual citizen's concerns. PCT also contributes significantly to the City's industrial tax base.
It takes about 8 hours to load a ship and because of this shipping connection, Port Moody is actually a "Port of Call"! Ask Berit sometime to tell you her story of a visit from a crew member while they off shored in Port Moody!
Diana ended her presentation with a standing invitation for the Club to visit PCT and see the operation in action.
We thank Diana for joining us and telling us the story behind the big yellow mountains on our shoreline.