Indigenous entrepreneur growth fund’s ‘star client’

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This article was published 24/10/2016 (3295 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. ANDREWS AIRPORT — As a kid growing up on a remote First Nation, Oliver Owen would race down to the water when he saw a float plane landing.

He would do little things to assist the pilot, such as hold onto the rope, or help keep the plane flush to the dock until it was tied down.

Owen loved planes. He still does.

Today, he owns Amik Aviation at St. Andrews Airport and employs about 20 full-time staff in summer. It’s a daily passenger service for remote First Nations Bloodvein, Berens River, Poplar River, Pauingassi and Little Grand Rapids, east of Lake Winnipeg.

Owen is an independent aboriginal entrepreneur, a still-rare segment in society. How did he do it? It wasn’t with help from banks.

“I was born in a log cabin,” said Owen, 58, interviewed in the $1.3-million hangar he had built in 2014.

He was born to a single mom in Little Grand Rapids. It was April, and they couldn’t cross the Berens River to the nursing station because the ice was breaking up. So an aunt birthed him.

The family was indigent. “I can remember going to bed without eating. That’s how poor we were,” Owen recalled.

His younger brother was adopted at age four by a childless family his mother knew on another reserve. Oliver’s turn was next. He was sent to live with his mother’s uncles at age six. He wouldn’t return to live with his mother again until he was a teenager and his mother had remarried.

He dreamed of being a pilot. He worked at a local lodge and saved $1,200 to get to Winnipeg. He was 20 when he took an apartment on William Avenue and Kate Street, where he learned to leave the lights on all night or else cockroaches would skitter up the walls.

He bused to St. Andrews Airport to take flying lessons from Winnipeg Aviation. The bus dropped him off at the junction of highways 8 and 27, and he’d walk the last couple of kilometres over the wind-swept plain. A man named Claus would give him rides whenever he saw him, and he now works for Owen.

Owen swept floors and cleaned planes at another small air service to help pay for his lessons. He had his private pilot’s licence before he had a driver’s licence.

He went on to obtain his commercial licence. He first went to Indian Affairs, as the federal department was called then, to seek financial assistance. He was refused, but the office offered to help pay to get a trucker’s licence. He refused. Nine years later, he flew the same counsellor to Little Grand Rapids.

Fast-forward: Owen worked for two small northern airlines, got elected chief at Little Grand Rapids and started a one-plane air service with his brother called Sowind Air in 1991 — with his own money. The South East Tribal Council wanted to get rid of a nine-passenger plane, so he leased that, too. He now had two planes.

Business was good. The South East Tribal Council became a minority shareholder and made up much of Sowind’s business. Even the banks were willing to loan Owen money, for the first and only time, and his fleet grew to 12 planes. He also took ownership of a store and gas station in Little Grand Rapids. When the South East Tribal Council tried to take ownership, Owen dissolved Sowind in the early 2000s.

‘The bank thinks if you’re aboriginal, it’s not going to work’– entrepreneur Oliver Owen, owner of Amik Aviation, on his struggles obtaining financing’I always spend time at Little Grand. They know me. I try to encourage young people. ‘Go to school,’ I tell them. ‘You can do everything you want. You just have to put your mind to it.”‘– Owen

He started again in 2008 with his current company, Amik Aviation. Like earlier attempts, he couldn’t get a bank loan. “The bank thinks if you’re aboriginal, it’s not going to work,” he said.

He credits loans from funding agencies the Communities Economic Development Fund in Thompson, the First Peoples Economic Growth Fund, and the Tribal Wi-Chi-Way-Win Capital Corporation for helping him get back into business.

The eight-year-old growth fund has invested $28 million to leverage $70 million for 168 First Nation companies. Up to $200,000 of loans, funded by the province, can be obtained interest-free, but after that borrowers pay higher interest charges than with banks.

Said senior loans officer, Tom Thordarson, of Owen: “He’s one of our star clients.”

Today, Owen owns a Cessna Grand Caravan, bought used for $1.3 million, and a $1.7-million Amphibian Caravan. Both seat nine passengers. He also owns a small aircraft.

Amik, which means “beaver” in Saulteaux, only flies once daily in winter when winter roads cut into business.

Owen has been a businessman for 25 years now. Several of his children work for him, and grandkids come in at night to clean the planes, as he did when younger.

“I always spend time at Little Grand. They know me. I try to encourage young people. ‘Go to school,’ I tell them. ‘You can do everything you want. You just have to put your mind to it.’”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca