About Martin Cash:

Martin Cash is a Free Press business columnist.

• Untendered helicopter ambulance deal to Alta. jeered

  MANITOBA Aviation Council members are up in arms over the fact the province is about to sign a long-term arrangement with an Alberta operator for the province's helicopter ambulance service -- without a public tender. STARS (the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society), a non-profit operation based in Alberta, had provided emergency service in the province during flood seasons in 2009 and 2011.

  View Full Column | 02/9/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Knights riding in with cash to spend

  Among  the many characterizations of the Winnipeg business community is the old adage there’s a lot of private money around this town. But if you’re an entrepreneur with a promising young business in need of investment capital, and you don’t have the password into the circles where that quiet money resides, it doesn’t really do you any good.

  View Full Column | 01/26/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Innovators compete for cash, exposure

  On Wednesday afternoon, five Winnipeg technology companies showed off the scope of innovation and enterprise that exists in Winnipeg. The fact most of them need additional capital and other strategic assistance to survive does not detract from the excellence of the work they're doing.

  View Full Column | 01/19/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Winnipeg set to get its own World Trade Centre?

  The chatter has already begun from various sectors about how tough it's going to be get provincial funding for industry initiatives. But both the federal and provincial governments came forward fairly quickly to provide a total of $1.2 million of financial support to backstop Centrallia 2012, the international business match-making event to be held again this year in Winnipeg in October.

  View Full Column | 01/12/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Increasingly bold thieves hurting trucking industry across Canada

  Last week at a truck stop in Indiana, a driver was taking a break and came out to find his truck, filled with $2 million worth of RIM Playbooks, had been stolen from the lot. Two weeks ago, while a driver was having his morning coffee at a truck stop in Niagara, Ont., a skilled thief disabled the wheel-lock device on his highway tractor-trailer, started the rig and drove off with the load.

  View Full Column | 12/27/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• New effort to put Churchill on shipping map

  Talks are underway to arrange for a shipment of goods from Churchill to China next year. It may not even matter what the cargo contains. The point of the exercise would be to alert the global shipping industry that with warming Arctic waters, there is a potential new trade route for shippers to consider.

  View Full Column | 12/22/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Motoring along: CentrePort on its way to becoming transportation gateway

  Drivers of the 20,000 trucks a week who use the two-lane Inkster Boulevard can all see the rail overpass under construction west of Brookside Boulevard. What looks like a bridge to nowhere in a farmer's field is part of the $220-million CentrePort Canada Way highway. It's also the first obvious manifestation of CentrePort Canada, the inland port.

  View Full Column | 12/16/2011 7:29 AM | 0

• Wealthy Barber has new advice to beat old money woes

  Large financial institutions have super-comprehensive and busy marketing and public affairs operations. The Internet and email communications allow those departments to release all sorts of information and encourage media coverage with many more angles to stories than they ever could in the past.

  View Full Column | 12/1/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Going global all about strategy, timing

  A prominent local economist recently remarked on how ongoing uncertainties in the global financial sector will mean going back to the drawing board with their economic models. If the issues are deep enough to stymie economists who live and breathe this stuff, imagine the challenges for small and medium-sized companies who are trying to wade into emerging export markets.

  View Full Column | 11/24/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Medical devices' fortunes not quite as good as gold

  The recent fortunes of a couple of local companies help put a face to the current state of global economic uncertainty. On the one hand, San Gold Corp., a small gold miner that has invested heavily in a legacy gold mine in Bissett, just turned its first quarterly profit.

  View Full Column | 11/17/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Boyd's business model a winning strategy in U.S.

  In the last year-and-half, the Boyd Group Income Fund has increased its U.S. footprint by 72 locations, more than doubling its size there. Industry players have been coy about which of the handful of collision-repair consolidators was the largest.

  View Full Column | 11/10/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• More 'incubators' growing tech firms

  Business incubators are designed to help technology companies grow in all sorts of ways. Often, those companies need help with management issues, sales and marketing and protection of intellectual property.

  View Full Column | 11/3/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Agriculture industry will rise to face changes

  Agriculture dominated the news cycle this week and although the stories were not specifically connected, there will he shared impacts felt across the province's agri-business and manufacturing landscape. Federal legislation ending the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly and Maple Leaf Foods' significant investment in pork processing signal a new dynamic.

  View Full Column | 10/21/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Former adviser on a crusade

  Larry Elford is not associated with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, but he is a kindred spirit. The month-long "occupation" of Wall Street, ostensibly as a protest against corporate greed, uses the slogan, "We are the 99 per cent."

  View Full Column | 10/14/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Making it... with a little help

  The floors are bare concrete in the third-storey space of a nondescript Adelaide Street warehouse building in the west Exchange District. Over the last few months, three Winnipeg entrepreneurs and about 30 volunteers have built several rudimentary rooms with chipboard walls, hired an electrician to wire the place and hauled in about $250,000 worth of manufacturing equipment.

  View Full Column | 10/8/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Chamber fills leadership abyss

  Brian Bowman refers to those whose names were on the ballots on Tuesday as people who make the ultimate sacrifice. For someone who has just been sworn is as chairman of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, that's saying a lot.

  View Full Column | 10/6/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• BOLD initiative a blueprint for public-policy reform

  The Manitoba BOLD initiative championed by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce during this provincial election campaign might work just as well as a call to arms for the private sector as a prodding for public policy reform. The six-pronged campaign mines a rich vein of potential business-development activities covering a broad cross-section of the provincial economy.

  View Full Column | 09/29/2011 3:17 AM | 0

• Doom and gloom from a Manitoba perspective

  CONTINUING weakness and uncertainty in the U.S. economy cannot help but spell weaker prospects for Manitoba.

  View Full Column | 09/23/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Yes! Winnipeg scoring singles on way to a home run

  Early next month, Yes! Winnipeg will announce details of six new successes it has facilitated, representing 120 jobs. That's in addition to five others it's already announced that, by its own estimates, represent another 200 jobs.

  View Full Column | 09/22/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Arctic Glacier still valuable, coveted despite many woes

  Arctic Glacier may be mired in the worst kind of corporate mess, but it doesn't change the fact that its operations are capable of generating substantial profits. When cocktails are mixed in six Canadian provinces and 17 U.S. states, chances are it's Arctic Glacier premium packaged ice that will be clinking in those glasses.

  View Full Column | 09/15/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Province's trucking industry punching above its weight

  Considering the combination of Manitoba's particularly large trucking industry and the province's predisposition to spring flooding, it is a surprisingly well adjusted industry. For instance, John Spacek, assistant deputy minister of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, told a trucking industry get-together this week that flooding this year damaged 31 bridges requiring $75 million in immediate repairs.

  View Full Column | 09/8/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• We're on the tourism map

  Manitoba might be a little more insular than other parts of the country, so we may not the best judge of the relative level of activity here compared to other places. But when the chairman of the Canadian Tourism Commission says Winnipeg has the most compelling new tourism attractions in the works in Canada, it's probably something we can take to the bank.

  View Full Column | 09/1/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Economy gets their vote

  When looking for someone to blame for why the economy did not become a larger issue in the last provincial election, members of Manitoba business organizations pointed to themselves. Dave Angus, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said the community is determined to not let the same thing happen during this fall's election.

  View Full Column | 08/30/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Cars promises different experience

  WHEN Terry Smith started Boyd Autobody in 1990, collision repair was a huge, fragmented industry with no one having anything even approaching brand recognition. Not only that, but focus groups Boyd conducted early on showed that when people considered where to get their vehicle repaired, they lacked a sense of trust and had a feeling they were being taken advantage of.

  View Full Column | 08/4/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• A growing interest

  Considering how fickle equity markets are, getting the timing right for an initial public offering can make or break a deal. If you're in the business of processing and trading specialty crops based in Western Canada, with customers around the world, this would be a good time to go public.

  View Full Column | 07/21/2011 1:00 AM | 0

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