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Northern Sask. residents win ABEX awards

Sep 20, 2017 | 10:00 AM

A business and a community leader working in northern Saskatchewan were recognized by the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce with Achievement in Business Excellence awards (ABEX).

Chief Tammy Cook-Searson from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band was recognized as a leader in her community and for her work as President of the Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership. She won the first Community Leader of the Year Award, presented as part of the ABEX awards.

“I feel really good,” Cook-Searson said. “I got a call from Steve McLellan, the CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce… He told me it was recognizing the business ventures we’re in and the work we do with our First Nation.”

Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership is the Lac La Ronge Indian band’s economic development agency. The partnership includes a variety of companies including catering and gravel crushing companies among others.

Cook-Searson attributed the award to the hard work and expertise of her co-workers at the Lac La Ronge Indian Band office, as well as her family.

She said the 2015 wildfires, which led to the evacuations of many Lac La Ronge Indian Band communities, kept her busy for a month and a half. Her husband, parents and in-laws stepped up to help care for her children while she was occupied with band business.

Cook-Searson said she would be taking her parents, in-laws and husband with her to attend the ABEX award ceremony in Saskatoon on Oct. 21.

The Community Leader of the Year isn’t the only ABEX award given to a Northerner. Geoff Gay, CEO of Athabasca Basin Development won the Business Leader of the Year Award.

Gay is a transplant from the Maritimes, who has spent a lot of time in the north regions of the province.

He said the Business Leader of the Year award may come from his work with the Northern Business Task Force.

“We’ve said as a Northern Business Task Force, in order for business to improve in the north, we need life to improve in the north,” Gay said.

Gay said the task force takes southern business people and leaders to the north to show them “how things work up there” while gathering their input and recommendations.

He said the task force has since used those recommendations to improve road access to northern communities, reduce the cost of goods through the Nutrition North subsidy program, and working to lower power bills.

Gay said he, along with co-workers, investors and family members will attend the ABEX award ceremony in October.

 

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas