Goodbye Hal!

Ron Ryan, Senior Consultant

From the desk of Ron Ryan:

One of Baffin Island’s innovators has decided to leave the north to pursue another career. Hal Timar, Executive Director (ED) of the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce (BRCC) for the past seven years has tendered his resignation. He has added a number of dimensions to the Chamber that will have lasting effects on the Baffin business community and beyond. As Hal prepares to move south of the tree line, we would like to acknowledge the many initiatives that took shape under Hal’s stewardship.

Community Economic Development (CED) Weeks. Working on the premise that if ‘they can’t come to us, we will go to them’ the CED weeks were managed by Hal and his amazing team at BRCC. The Chamber organized and coordinated travel to Baffin communities for development agencies, government departments, businesses and organizations that allowed these groups to share information and connect with people and businesses in communities. These mini trade shows allowed the participants to put on a display of what they had to offer and dialogue with residents. This consisted of different program offerings, the kind of finance that might be available for entrepreneurs, license applications for outfitters, insurance for tourist operators or how to access training, among many other things.

Development of materials and training tools. The Chamber developed materials, training tools and ran workshops on sector opportunities where various sectors of the economy such as tourism, mining, and arts & crafts were examined for potential business opportunities. Information was provided on how a business could get started and where financial resources could be found. For businesses in communities, access to this kind of information was important and essential to have.

Hal Timar, former Executive Director of BRCC, at
Northern Lights 2012

Nunavut Trade Show & Northern Lights – Business and Cultural Showcase of Canada’s Easter Arctic and North. Both of these events have grown tremendously under Hal’s leadership. Northern Lights boasts a great partnership between the BRCC and the Labrador North Chamber of Commerce and this high profile business and cultural showcase of Nunavut, Nunavik, Labrador and Nunatsiavut has had 3 major successful events including Ottawa in 2008, Montreal in 2010 than in Ottawa 2012. The Nunavut Trade Show has consistently grown and is now the largest annual business to business event. It is hard to imagine that there will be no more ‘Hal on the microphone’ at these trade shows. Not only are these events themselves very successful, the BRCC developed a manual and other resource material and ran workshops on how businesses can be better prepared for and benefit from attendance at these trade shows.

Creation of training partnerships. Ask any northern business what one of their biggest challenges is and one will find out that having qualified bookkeepers has been an obstacle to the success of a business. Through funding from Department of Economic Development and Transportation (ED&T), Department of Education and Kakivak Association, BRCC offered a certified bookkeeping program to Baffin residents. Now there are certified bookkeepers working in the communities as the result of the efforts of the Chamber. Not only was this accomplished , these bookkeepers if they so desire can move on to a higher designation in accounting such as Certified General Accountant (CGA) or Certified Management Accountant (CMA) as they now have the foundation to do so.

Hal’s enthusiasm, energy, interest and insights have been major contributing factors to the success of these initiatives and others not mentioned above. He will be missed but not forgotten. We all wish him well in his new chosen career as Sr. VP North American Operations, Plugin Construction Solutions (PICS).