MEMBER PROFILE
a background in accounting and previously ran her own success-ful
home-based accounting practice. After Jim’s passing, Irene be-came
president.
Jonas has also been involved with BLS since his father purchased
it and he began his career as a truck driver/paving crew labourer.
Jonas grew up in the construction business, since he would often
visit job sites with his father. Jonas’ sister, Jennifer, started part-time
in 2006 and then full-time in 2008. She currently serves as the office
manager.
Since the Shorts purchased the business, there has been a dra-matic
shift in the company’s direction. One of the more immediate
shifts, says Jonas, involved changing the company name.
“The decals on the trucks said ‘Bruce’s Landscaping Services,’ so
when my dad pulled up onto a job site people would call him Bruce
if they didn’t know him,” said Jonas. “He was very proud of what he
had, so he said, ‘We’re going to tighten up the operation name by ab-breviating
it.’”
The company had around eight to 10 employees at the time of the
purchase and was primarily a landscaping operation. After the pur-chase,
the company began rapidly expanding.
In 2005, BLS added an aggregate processing division with the pur-chase
of a complete crushing spread to become a wholesale com-mercial/
industrial supplier of aggregate, which gave it the ability to
supply a variety of aggregate products.
In 2013, the company built an asphalt plant so it could begin man-ufacturing
and supplying its own asphalt. Jonas says this was a game-changing
move for the company.
The next generation of the Short
family is getting ready for work
YOUR CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY PROVIDER
SITECH Western Canada
www.sitech-wc.ca
306.535.1377
thinkbigmagazine.ca | Quarter 1 2018 | Think BIG 35