berta, the oil province of Canada, this line
of thinking has helped Primco Dene stay
afloat during the oil crisis.
“Because we’re so diversified, we’re
weathering the storm. We always knew
that we had to do services that were go-
ing to be resilient. The hardest thing to do
in an Aboriginal community is to start and
stop businesses. It takes a long time to
regain support and social licence so you
have to build a company that’s diversified,”
Blackman said.
Diversification serves the community well
too, giving members various employment
options — after all, not everyone wants to
be a chef or a paramedic. This is one of the
reasons why Primco Dene is able to em-
ploy such a high number of workers and
the number is expected to grow. Plans for
the future growth of the group of compa-
nies is underway — Blackman spoke en-
thusiastically about his intention to open
up to 15 more franchises in the next five
to eight years.
“I like Primco Dene because the board of
directors and the leadership of the Cold
Lake First Nations are very supportive of a
company that really walks the walk when
it comes to Aboriginal engagement and
employment. It’s easy for me to wake up
and want to work for a company that fo-
cuses on that being a priority and not just
profit,” Blackman said.
“One of the things that keeps us so structurally sound is the fact that we have a
social licence within our communities…”
SEPTEMBER 2016
H
business elite canada 19
