By Leslie Cholowsky, Editor
Eric Beaudry is the new Executive Director at Flagstaff Regional Solid Waste Management. The facility is run by a society owned equally and operated by every municipality in Flagstaff County, and Rosalind. The board is made up of elected officials from each, with the Executive Director tasked with the day-to-day operations of the facility, as well as long term planning and budgeting.
Beaudry moved to Killam over 20 years ago, at the time he had a brother-in-law who had a position for him on a rig. “I was trained as a baker, but I’ve never had the opportunity to do that,” he says.
He worked in construction for a while after the oilfield slowed down, and then he says he just walked into the landfill one day asking for a job.
He got a job right away as a burro-hand; the burro is the truck that travels through each municipality every week collecting household waste.
“I am a hard worker, and I brought that rig worker mentality to this position.”
In fact Beaudry moved up through the organization, before becoming operations coordinator, working under former Director Murray Hampshire, then for the last year, with Kevin Lunty.
He says both the previous directors gave him some extra training and information about what they did, not just as help in his position, but thinking about another step forward for him.
“I wasn’t quite ready to apply when Murray left, but working with Kevin Lunty for the past year encouraged me to jump on the opportunity when it arose.” Lunty left this past May to take a job at FRESS. He encouraged Beaudry to apply for his position, and Beaudry was hired by the board as Executive Director.
In a way, Beaudry says, working closely with Lunty during his first year in the position helped Beaudry, too. “It was a massive learning curve for Kevin, but also allowed me to do a lot of cross-training.”
With Beaudry moving up into the Executive Director position, he says Ian Strachan has moved into the Operations Coordinator position. Both are trying to help their replacements in their old positions, while also learning the ins and outs of their new jobs.
Beaudry says it was good timing, mid-year, with the financials done, and the budget done until the fall. “I came in and all that was done, and by the time we get around to it again, we should be at full strength again.”
Working his way up to the top gives Beaudry a good sense of how everything works, and he says Flagstaff Waste has a good working and environment. “The workplace culture is very good, and I aim to maintain that.”
He says it was a real privilege working with both Hampshire and Lunty, each bringing different management styles to the position.
He says some of the challenges that he sees ahead are aging infrastructure, with the office trailer experiencing some challenges right now, and the shop aging as well.
“It’s also getting very busy right now.”
Looking to the opportunities ahead, Beaudry says bins are flying out the doors, and they’ve put in a lot of bids on construction/renovation projects around the province. Collecting asbestos has been a big money maker in the past, and Beaudry hopes that side of the waste management business will continue to grow.
“We’re also working on developing new income streams. We have items we’ve sorted out of the waste, that we could easily be reselling.”
He’s also excited by the new recycling program hitting the province on Oct. 1. “This will be an interesting program. Instead of separating, sorting, and bailing our own recycling, as we do now, we’ll simply be trucking it to Hanna.”
He says the challenge will be meeting the standards of cleanliness required by the new program with the onus on the recyclers in the county to maintain a high standard of recycling.
Beaudry grew up in Calgary, but says he’d never go back. He has three children who were born here, he says, and this is now home.
“I love Killam; it’s clean and quiet and has all the services we need.”
Beaudry and his wife also own S & M Fitness in Killam, and he says being a small business owner allows him to bring some of those skills and lessons he’s learned over the years to his new position.
He says when he’s not working, he’s a bit of a hermit. He likes staying at home with his family, but definitely enjoys the odd audio book when he has the time.
Read the rest of this story from the August 12 edition of The Community Press!
