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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Twenty-five years ago, three women with a business idea set their eyes on a storage room in the Precambrian Building.

Office Compliments founder and owner Liz Wyman, centre, with business managers Judy Murdock, left, and Boerny Phillips, right, at the company's 25th anniversary celebration on Oct. 13. - Thandie Vela/NNSL photo

On Oct. 1, 1986, after convincing the building's owner that they were a good risk, Office Compliments, now located in the Diamond Plaza, was born.

"Marg had this idea of always wanting to run a company like Office Compliments," owner Liz Wyman said of the business she would come to found with Marg Hall and her sister Pat Moore.

"Where we would provide office services, rent out offices, and basically have administration services that we would offer to clients."

At the time, not every office had a computer, printer, or fax machine, and as Wyman tells it, the engineers and lawyers that were renting from Office Compliments, didn't go to school learning how to type or use a computer.

So, along with office rentals, and a 100-line switchboard for phone-answering services, the women would type dictated reports, print, photocopy, and cerlox them, shred papers, and even bake fresh muffins for anyone who rented the boardroom.

In addition to offering the first public fax services in the territory, Office Compliments quickly became an essential company to small businesses in a growing Yellowknife.

"It was a very essential service," said Gary Reid, president of Braden Burry Expediting, who has been a business associate of Wyman since before the company's inception.

"There was not as much support as there is today and it offered smaller companies opportunities to work in offices with all the support services of word processing and telephone services.

"It was a fabulous idea and she deserves a lot of credit with her partners."

While Wyman has since bought the other founders out of the business, it continues to be a success and essential to the city's businesses today, she said, due to adapting to the times.

"Office Compliments has been successful for 25 years because we have had to change our business," Wyman said. "Based on technology, and based on what has changed over the past 25 years."

Business manager Judy Murdock, who has been with the company for 10 years, added the company takes its cues from its clients.

"What we have tried to do is pay attention to what our clients are needing," Murdock said. "What business service they're currently requiring and we try to adapt to that."

Bookkeeping, and both temporary and permanent personnel recruitment are the biggest demands from clients today, Murdock said. The company said it has found work for more than 1,000 people, and the number has "certainly gone up," in the past five years, Murdock said.

Leaving the day-to-day operations of the company to Murdock and her other employees, Wyman still reminisces on the past but also has a positive vision of the future for Office Compliments.

"It has been a real pleasure doing business in the North for the past 25 years," she said. "And I look forward to doing more business in the North for the next 25."

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