Energy + Opportunity
As a young man just starting out in Alberta’s energy industry, 50-year old Tyrone Brass remembers seeing a native business showing off its success in a parade near his home reserve.
“It had a big effect on me. It made me really proud to be an Indian,” says Brass, a father of four in Fort McMurray. “I thought, man oh man if I do this, if I go there, I am going to make sure that I give someone else a boost and do that for someone else.”
Today, his company in Fort McMurray - Bayzik Oilsands Electric - has four native employees and he’s always on the look out for more
“I took the company from just me and another guy to having 28 folks working with me and a gross annual income of more than $6 million,” Brass says.
Aside from running his own business, Brass helps other native businesses as the 2nd Vice President of the Northeastern Alberta Aboriginal Business Association (NAABA). The non-profit organization promotes businesses, jobs, and training that better all native people in the region.
“NAABA has just over 100 Aboriginal member businesses in the Fort McMurray region,” he says. These businesses provide everything from technical analysis and medical services to earth moving and artistic services.
“When you monitor how we’ve been doing, you see that Aboriginal businesses rise as industry ramps up,” Brass says. “You can actually draw a straight line to increased activity in the oil sands and increased activity in Aboriginal businesses.”
Before starting Bayzik five years ago, Brass spent 19 years working for an oil sands operator. He started as a labourer in the mining department in the late 1980s and over the years, he took advantage of progressively more senior opportunities in different departments.
Along the way, his managers alerted him to a number of company development programs and they encouraged him as he went to night school to acquire two trades; electrician and instrumentation technologist. “That helped make bettering yourself a positive experience,” he says of the support he received as an employee.
Brass is also grateful for the work his company gets with oil sands operators now. “I have a great deal of gratitude to show to the oil industry and to the oil sands companies.”
“My company is going where I want it to be. I don’t just want to be a guy who travels around in a truck with tools,” says Brass. “I also wanted to have a little bit of a distributorship; carry a line of electronics and have technical support staff to support that.”
While he hasn’t been in any parades, Brass says his success and that of other NAABA companies reverberates throughout First Nations communities.
“An Aboriginal person kind of silently feels a great deal of pride when they watch another Aboriginal company be successful and show them the way.”
Learn more about NAABA http://www.naaba.ca/index.html
Visit Bayzik Oilsands http://www.bayzikelectric.com/
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