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Northern logistics giant at it again

Lauren McKeon
Northern News Services
Published Monday, March 16, 2009

KIVALLIQ/WINNIPEG - Getting supplies into the North can be a little bit like waiting for paint to dry.

Or as Stuart Russell, vice-president of business development with BBE, puts it, "logistics in the North is such an exciting thing, because there are so many wild cards."

NNSL Photo/Graphic

BBE is looking to mirror its success of its Edmonton gateway into Yellowknife with its Winnipeg gateway. Here, Edmonton employee Aaron Collins is working on the BBE LMS Logistics Management System the company uses for receiving, bar coding, tracking and manifesting all of the freight it ships North. - photox courtesy of Stuart Russell, BBE

Most recently, Russell and Northern logistics giant BBE will be tackling those wild cards in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, as the company works to expand its supply chain from Winnipeg as a one-stop shop for the North.

"We're really a classic case of a small Northern business that's grown up and taken on the rest of the world," said Russell.

BBE began in Yellowknife in 1977 as Braden-Burry Expediting. The company was then made up of a couple of guys with a radio and a couple of pick-up trucks forging a link with explorers out on the land.

"You know - send me cigarettes, send me food, send me this, send me that," said Russell.

It expanded in the '80s with a new owner, Gordon Stewart. At that time, said Russell, everybody and their dog was out in the rhubarb patch looking for diamonds, "creating the largest staking race that's ever taken place in North America."

Going forward in the exploration craze climate, BBE "grew up" with BHP, which had not yet added the "Billiton" to its name, providing all logistical services to the developing mine, said Russell.

"BBE is a small but determined Northern business that has been working diligently for many years to establish dedicated supply chain corridors from southern gateways to the NWT and Nunavut," he said.

The company has grown exponentially, even only counting the past decade.

In 2001, BBE bought a 25,000-square-foot cargo facility at the Edmonton International Airport and refocused its supply chain and gateway to the North to the Alberta city.

The company opened another gateway, or supply chain, in Inuvik, for companies working in the Beaufort region, the following year.

In 2007, the company was purchased by NorTerra, which is jointly-owned by the Nunasi Corporation and the Inuvialuit Development Corporation. In 2008, BBE bought a cargo-handling business in Ottawa, setting up operations to Iqaluit that same year.

BBE is now hoping to do the same thing with its operations in Winnipeg as its Edmonton to Yellowknife, Edmonton to Inuvik, and Ottawa to Iqaluit routes.

"We're taking all the things we learned in the west (Arctic), and we're just using our computer systems and putting in our people and doing business the same way. We're just doing it in a different place," said Russell.

He added the company has heard the need from communities to get better shipping out of the Churchill Gateway - from Manitoba into Nunavut - and the new operating system won't be available only to mines.

"People that have a problem being able to marshal their freight today, or they're not in the position where they're sophisticated enough to know all these ropes - if they phone us we can help them," said Russell. "That's basically what our objective is - to develop in our strategic plan more corridors going back and forth to the North," he added.

In short, said Russell, BBE wants the North "to have control of its own destiny."

"We don't worry too much about freight going between Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Buenos Aires ... we worry about things going into the North."

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