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in town. That’s a real advantage with technology companies such as ours.”


There is also a lesson to be learned about changing to meet the times. After spending 32 years in traditional auto sales, Don banked on his knowledge and his ideas and took a risk to jump into the new technology economy. With the help of Community Futures EntreCorp, he and wife Brone laid down the framework for what has now become an extremely successful enterprise 10 years later. Their company currently employs half a dozen full time workers in Medicine Hat and is finding its profits going up year after year.


“We’re not warehousing,” explains Brone. “We’re not shipping anything. We don’t even pay for the stamp on an invoice. We email all our invoices. There’s no marketing. It’s such a niche market and you are business-to-business. The dealers are our client, and that’s who we cater to.”


But Brone and Don will both tell you the biggest key to their success, without a doubt, is the high quality of life, the good wages and positive work atmosphere their employees enjoy in Medicine Hat. It’s a sentiment shared by most local technology companies, and it is a huge factor in choosing to base their businesses here.


Meggitt Training Systems Canada (MTSC) is a defense technology company which operates in nearly a dozen countries worldwide. Selling unmanned vehicle training systems for military use in air, on land and at sea, MTSC has long called Medicine Hat home.


“I am very proud to work at a global company in the city of Medicine Hat,” says Vincent Malley, business development manager at MTSC. “We are very proud of our team and the products we build here. I think we have been successful in obtaining and retaining high quality staff and individuals to work at our business. There is a wide variety of people who want to live in Medicine Hat. Medicine Hat has a thriving industry and, over the last few years, has been diversifying out of oil and gas and finding other markets to become leaders in.”


Much of MTSC’s business in Medicine Hat centres around testing unmanned vehicles with military applications at DRDC-CFB Suffield, and working closely with the Canadian military to develop further training systems for export worldwide. Malley says Medicine Hat is ideally suited to their company’s needs in that respect.


“The unmanned vehicle cluster has kind of established itself in southeast Alberta through the natural topography of the area, especially with the long days in


summer time and the big areas there are for testing here. It’s a natural fit for unmanned vehicle companies to land here. The Regional Innovation Network has also been successful in rounding up the local technology sector and creating networking events and establishing a forum where people can share ideas and build a stronger tech sector in the future.”


Malley also credits Medicine Hat College for the role it plays in providing a resource pool of students to draw potential employees from. And further praises the college’s 2013 acquisition of a state-of- the-art thermal plastic 3D printer which represents a significant resource for companies such as MTSC thinking of moving into the area.


It’s that kind of praise from local industry, says Walter Garrison, manager innovation and scholarship at Medicine Hat College, which reinforces the thinking behind bringing such technological innovations to the city in the first place.


“If you are an inventor or you are a company that has a product that you want to physically prototype and test, this is where this technology can really shine. We have technology that enables you to realize an object quickly; far more quickly then with traditional manufacturing methods.”


Garrison sees the college’s industrial- grade 3D printer as an example of a technology which is on the cusp of a broader transition in society toward a more localized innovation economy. And Medicine Hat, says Garrison, has the potential to get there first.


“As we get the word out, companies and other people interested in this technology across the province are really impressed with what we are doing here,” says Garrison. “It’s challenging to be on the cusp like this. We’re not perfect, but we learn every day. Our clients force us to become better and we make them better.”


Innovation is the key to success in the growth and development of a business, a community or a region. Just as the brick work, clay and traditional manufacturing economy of this area eventually gave way to oil and gas development, so too must southeast Alberta begin to think about new horizons and plan for the economy of the future. Companies like Meggitt, Auto~Star and Accessible Accessories are leading the charge in that respect. With the support of local government, the Regional Innovation Network and Medicine Hat College, there has never been a better time to sow the seeds of that future in Medicine Hat. ■


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Shaun Vaudry Sales Manager





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www.suncountrynissan.ca


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