Ken Germain, Classification Refresher
Posted by Vi Hughes on Sep 21, 2016
Tuesday’s speaker was Ken Germain, giving us a refresher and update on his classification talk. It was nice for the newer members to hear about the experiences of one of our long time members.
Ken joined our club in 1999 and is a past president (2009-2010) and a Paul Harris Fellow. He was also a recipient of the Rotarian of the Year Award in 2013. Ken grew up in Alberta, first in Calgary, then in Red Deer. His father worked in construction and was a long time Rotarian, so Ken learned about Rotary from a young age. He attended Red Deer College. As a young man he worked part time in several different retail jobs, MacLeod’s Hardware and Kelly’s Stereo Mart were two of his earliest jobs. He appreciated the fact that the Stereo Mart gave him an abiding love for music from the 70’s that has stayed with him throughout his life. He says that marrying his wife who is from a farm family, gave him a true appreciation of how hard people work on a farm.
He first went into sales of industrial cleaning supplies with Fuller Brush, and then moved on to selling to distributors with Johnson Wax. He then tried setting up his own company with a Maid Service, but found that staffing was too much of an issue, so he moved on to selling for the printing industry at Moore Business Forms. They produced all kinds of safety labels and signs. Along the way he was learning all kinds of things that would help him in his future endeavors. He then tried another business selling cappuccino machines to restaurants, but found that it was just not the right timing for Edmonton. As he looks back now, it would have worked very well a few years afterwards. He also spent a short time with the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, to get to know more about the business community in Edmonton. In 1998, he started working for Phillips Environmental, selling their services to commercial companies. One project he worked on was to recycle and/or reuse as much as possible of the huge oil filters that are removed from CN diesel locomotives, in order to keep as much as possible out of the landfill. This type of work gave him the idea to start his own Environmental Disposal company, which helps customers decommission buildings, or dispose of unwanted materials, including dangerous goods. They try to handle all types of waste in a way that is cost effective for both the customer and the environment.
Ken’s talk gave us an example of how resourcefulness and persistence can result in success, and is another example of the many ways Rotarians can help to make the world a better place.