Penticton Indian Band Development Corporation Helping Build The Okanagan
Joanie Gabriel
PENTICTON – At some point in construction, many of the companies building projects in the Okanagan for the past 30-plus years have purchased products from Westhills Aggregates.
That means they’ve dealt with Dispatcher Joanie Gabriel, affectionately known by Westhills employees and customers alike. When the day eventually comes when she retires, her shoes will be difficult to fill. Everyone loves her, and she’s involved in almost every step of interaction with the company, from invoicing to loading product.
Westhills Superintendent Chris Ingle notes “Joanie sits at the scale house, and deals with every single coming and going customer, and has been doing it for such a long time that everyone knows her. Between the amount of years she has put in and how she takes care of everybody, it’s going to be a major void when she retires.
Adds General Manager Desmond O’Brien: “Joanie bakes for our customers, and if she’s not there at the window, they come and ask where she is.”
Westhills is a subsidiary of the Penticton Indian Band Development Corporation. All employees of Westhills are either family or friends.
“All of the employees here, everyone you’re working with, you have personal contact with and you’re going home to break bread with them,” Ingle observes. “That is the very essence and foundation that all of the PIB companies are built on, and relationships are so extremely important.”
Which makes Joanie so important.
“She’s the glue that holds it together, the matriarch so to speak,” Ingle says, to which O’Brien adds: “She doesn’t just do her job, she knows all of the workers since they were kids, and a lot of them are now adults. She keeps them in line.”
Westhills has grown steadily, and recently added new product offerings to expand their market share.
“Rock sells itself, but we wanted to venture into civil and road building, so our marketing strategies have changed a bit. We’ve put enough feathers in our hats and eggs in separate baskets to allow us to expand,” notes Ingle.
That includes processing and bagging landscaping material that is sold at stores, including colours from peach and white to brown and black, from a half inch to boulders.
“With diversification comes a variety of different clientele, and having Joanie to be able to be the direct contact for all of our clients that come in and out is so important,” Ingle says. “People want to come back and look forward to seeing her. Joanie has held everyone together for years, and when she leaves, she will shadow the ideal candidate for an extensive period of time. She wants to make sure the success here continues.”