V25N3 (reduced).indd - Atlantic Business Magazine

ATLANTIC BUSINESS MAGAZINE’S
CEO OF THE YEAR
Forged
by fire
The triumph of
Anne Whelan
She’s been a welfare officer in California, a
community development worker in her home
province of Newfoundland and Labrador, a
single mum with more bills than bucks, and,
not for nothing, a kick-ass CEO of a diversified
clutch of companies that today generate
between $20- and $50-million in annual
revenues. What’s her formula for success? Go
ahead, ask away. But can you handle the truth?
By Alec Bruce
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1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence
May/June 2014 atlanticbusinessmagazine.com
95
Anne Whelan could complain if
she wanted to. She doesn’t want to. She
could whine about one of the roughest runs
of months in all her seven years as a business
owner. She doesn’t whine. Still, it’s not in her
nature to sugarcoat the truth about anything.
And the truth of 2013 for St. John’s-based
Seafair Capital (a holding company for diverse
operations that involve everything from nursing
to property management of which she is the
president, CEO and sole shareholder), is, to say
the least, inconvenient.
“Honestly,” she confesses, after a
not-quite-imperceptible sigh, “this has
been a very tough year.”
Trouble began brewing early when
the Newfoundland and Labrador
government, an established and
valuable client, and her largest
company, CareGivers Inc., failed to
renew a customary arrangement
between them. “Historically, our
services (providing in-home,
residential healthcare) on behalf of the
Province have not been contracted,”
Whelan explains. “It has been a feefor-service agreement. That dropped
off significantly and somewhat
unexpectedly last year. Meanwhile,
the government put out a more formal
request for proposals, which it didn’t
actually award in the time frame that
everybody expected. So, we were kind
of left hanging.”
There were other vexations, too.
Just as Seafair completed contract
negotiations with its 500 unionized
workers at CareGivers (virtually the
entire payroll), penny-pinchers and
budgetary hawks – again, mostly
among public sector clientele –
squeezed margins in the home-care
work that remained. “The government
did not give us the rate increase
that we needed to even offset the
wage increase that we had already
committed to,” Whelan says. “So, that
was a real kick in the teeth.”
In the end, CareGivers – which
represented 60 per cent of Seafair’s
total $20-50-million in annual revenue
96
1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence
– registered a 20 per cent slump in its
own gross. The bottom-line effect was
that a commercial clutch that had, as
recently as 2010, posted a 25 per cent
annual revenue bump, compared with
the previous year, actually dipped into
negative morass in 2013.
Says Whelan: “Our revenue growth
on the combined group of companies
dropped approximately seven per cent
… It didn’t happen overnight, but by
the end of the summer our year-overyear revenues were down to the point
that we had to take serious action to
avoid a financial disaster.”
And yet, now in March 2014, sitting
in her office in St. John’s, where a fresh
10 centimeters of late-winter snow
covers the port city like a tarp, she’s
not complaining. She’s not whining.
She is merely reflecting, in the way
that successful CEOs do when they’ve
been tempered and forged by fire.
“You know, I’ve given this a lot of
thought,” she says. “I have wondered,
especially when things don’t go
well, whether I am the right person
to lead us through the next stage of
growth. But, one of the things that
happens to you when you go from
being a manager to a business owner
and then finally to a CEO is that you
realize that what got you here won’t
get you there. In good times and bad,
in your business, you have to make the
necessary changes.”
Certainly, in her own life, Whelan, at
46, is no stranger to making changes,
necessary or otherwise.
If some entrepreneurs are
made and others are born, the secondoldest in a family of three girls and
one boy from the unprepossessing
village of Jerseyside, Placentia
(population: 600), would likely fit
herself somewhere in the middle of
the spectrum. She might even describe
herself, growing up, as a somewhat
typical product of rural Newfoundland:
hard-working, invested in her
community, loyal to her family and
friends. But if someone had told her
that she would one day become the
CEO of a multi-million-dollar private
company, she would have either
politely demurred or laughed out loud.
“I would have never contemplated the
title of CEO on my own,” she says. “It
just wasn’t something I would have
considered.”
What did appear on her radar
of personal ambitions was a good
education (she earned a BA from
Memorial University in 1990), a job
(she worked in community economic
development and social services in
Canada and the United States for seven
years) and a family of her own. “I met
a U.S. serviceman who was stationed
at the base in Argentia,” Whelan says.
“We got married and, eventually,
we moved to California where I was
employed as a welfare officer. We also
had a little girl.”
In 1994, she and her husband and
daughter returned to Newfoundland.
Within a year, she says, “I was a
divorced mother of a three-year-old
(Starting top left, clockwise): Anne Whelan,
age three; grade seven photo; Anne and
a cousin go for a boat ride (approx. 1978).
Anne, naturally, is behind the wheel.
Anne’s
Empire
with no child support and no job. My
ex-husband had gone back to the
United States and I didn’t hear from
him for several years… It was not an
amicable split... In fairness, though,
he went back to school after a couple
of years and tried to straighten out his
life a bit. But, in 1995, I was on my
own.”
In fact, she hastens to add, that’s not
entirely accurate. To this day, Whelan
credits her close-knit family for saving
her economic bacon. “I absolutely
would not have survived if I didn’t
have the family I had,” she insists.
“There’s no question about that… My
dad, who has since passed away, was
incredibly good and a stand-in father
for my daughter. He did things like
come and shovel out my car at seven
in the morning… My parents bought
me a house that I lived in until I could
afford to pay for it myself… My sisters,
Susan and Jane, were both so good to
me. They did a lot of child care. They
did a lot of showing up and, you know,
making me not feel alone. And my
brother, who is much younger than me,
babysat. We pulled together. I mean
everybody lives in St. John’s now, so
we’re really one of those rural families
that sticks together.”
Still, the bitter irony of her
circumstances was a daily, unwelcome
companion. “You know, I had spent
years being a welfare officer and I
was not about to spend the rest of my
existence being on the other side of
that table,” she says. “I did manage
to get a job, and then a better job and
then got laid off from that. So, I decided
I needed to make a change in my life
or my daughter and I were going to live
hand-to-mouth forever, and rely on my
parents for more than they should ever
have to do.”
Her bottom line was simple: Her
plan was not to be an entrepreneur;
her plan was to get a job. And to
do this, she reasoned, she needed
an MBA – the best that her scarce
resources could buy. In 1999, she
enrolled at Memorial, initially on a
part-time basis. Through connections,
she landed a contract position that
enabled her to work full time from her
home and go to school. The calculated
gamble paid off. Her name on the
Dean’s List erased whatever doubts she
may have harbored about herself.
BrenKir
Industrial Supply
Blue Sky
Family Care
Distributes
safety
and industrial
supplies
Specialized residential
care and treatment
for children and
youth
Care Givers
Inc.
Home support,
nursing, occupational
health
Seafair Capital
Care
Connection NL
Technology-based
support for
independent living
Head office: St. John’s, N.L.
Ownership company whose
subsidiaries collectively generate
between $20-$50 million
in annual revenue and employ
560 full- and part-time staff.
NL Training
Centre
Commercial and
residential real estate
First aid training and
meeting space rentals
Greystone
Business Solutions
Property management,
business services
98
Various real
estate holdings
1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence
The Three Sisters
Pub and Restaurant
Pub and restaurant
For a sus ta inable fu tu re
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Angmavugut SuliaKapvitinni
Nunatsiavut
Taggâni Satjugiammi Labradorimi, takutitsigunnatuk piujummaginnik
nunanik ammalu inutsianik inunnik.
Ammalu Kanuittutuinnanik namminik kenaujaliugutinik
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w w w. n u n a t s i a v u t . c o m
Design & Layout by Jodie Goodwin. Sananguativut Nunatsiavut Visual Design © 2013. Photos: Geoff Goodyear © 2013
Showing
her medal
Being named Atlantic
Canada’s CEO of the Year
for 2014 is the latest in a
long line of recognitions for
Anne Whelan:
•
Newfoundland and
Labrador Organization
of Women Entrepreneurs
(NLOWE) Entrepreneurial
Excellence Awards (2013)
•
E&Y Entrepreneur of the
Year Finalist, Atlantic
Canada (2013)
•
Four-time Atlantic
Business Magazine Top 50
CEO (2011-2014)
•
Queen Elizabeth Diamond
Jubilee Medal for
contributions to home
care quality and residential
care of children (2012)
•
RBC Canadian Woman
Entrepreneur of the Year,
Growth Category (2010)
•
NLOWE Visionary Award
(2009)
“I think the turning point for me was
understanding that when bad things
happen (and they do!), that’s when you
really need to dig deep,” she says. “You
need to fi nd your strengths, be true to
yourself and those around you, and just
fi nd a way to make something good from
something bad. That is the challenge of
change. Knowing this has served me well
in the years since.”
Indeed, it has, but that doesn’t mean
any of it has come easily, especially in the
years since.
When Whelan reviews her
personal evolution in business, she likens
it to a shifting state of mind, peppered
with moments of disappointment and,
more importantly, enlightenment. She
began, in 2002, by agreeing to take
over managing the daily operations of
her mother’s small home care agency
(CareGivers). “When I started, I was
overseeing a very small group in a very
small company, and I was dealing with
things I could see right in front of my
eyes,” she says.
By 2007, her appetite for
entrepreneurship suitably whetted, she
assembled a vendor note and a bank loan
(worth four times the value of her home’s
mortgage) to buy her mother out. “As a
business owner, I had a whole set of other
worries,” she says. “You know, my house
was on the line for this, and I realized just
how much a small business owner puts on
his or her shoulders.”
Emboldened (or, perhaps, terrified)
by her new role and responsibilities,
between 2007 and 2010, Whelan
orchestrated a series of bold expansions
– including residential care for children
and adults, home support, private-duty
nursing, and clinical services – that
effectively quadrupled the company’s
annual revenues to $20 million. During
this time, Seafair, proper, began to take
shape with new operating entities, such
as Blue Sky Family Care, Care Connect
NL, Greystone Business Solutions, BrenKir
Industrial Supply, The Three Sisters Pub
and Restaurant (a nod to the Whelan
siblings, themselves) in St. John’s, as well
as various real estate holdings. “At some
point, I think I realized that you are a CEO
when you have other people at senior
Congratulations to
Atlantic Canada’s
Top 50 CEOs.
Great leadership, like art,
inspires us all.
artgalleryofnovascotia.ca
Robert Field, Lieutenant Provo William Parry Wallis, 1813, oil on canvas,
76.2 x 63.5 cm. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Purchase, 1979.18.
Work is on view in the exhibitionWar of 1812-1814: Then and After.
100
1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence
levels who help carry the load,” she says.
“As much as anything, nowadays I lead,
and it’s been a very gratifying transition,
but it’s also been scary along the way.”
Especially when things go sideways.
Considering one’s options,
over and over again, is not only a CEO’s
appointed task; it’s her occupational
hazard. And when Whelan faced the truth
about her own company’s straights in
2013, she took at least some comfort in
the diversified nature of her operations
– something she engineered almost
organically. “I would say that the common
ground among all of the operations is the
value system, which comes from my own
rural experience,” she explains. “In fact,
it probably comes from thinking about
those guys – they were mostly guys – who
had the general store, and the ambulance
service and whatever else they needed to
run the town. One thing can suffer a bit,
but chances are, the other things will keep
you afloat.”
Of course, that model of
entrepreneurship only works well for so
long. A farmer who endures a countywide crop failure won’t survive on the
proceeds of his five-and-dime if his
patrons are also farmers. With this in
mind, perhaps, Whelan started planting
new seeds. During the last half of 2013,
she embarked on an aggressive growth
plan that encompassed all of Seafair’s
operating branches, the purpose of which
was to establish a coherent vision of the
group’s future, with, as she says, “clearly
articulated goals for how we are going to
get there.”
The first, and hardest, order of
business, however, was undertaking
some necessary, if heartbreaking, triage
at CareGivers. “We looked at our work
and who we needed to do it, and for
the first time in my career, we had to do
layoffs,” she reports. “We chose to keep
our programming team intact because
they were so necessary and so difficult to
replace. We laid off administrative roles.
But in those roles were people whose
skill sets might make it difficult for them
to find other work. We offered every kind
of support we could think of to help them
transition. And we didn’t stop there. We
planned for growth in other services that
would be less affected by government
cutbacks.”
The moves worked well enough to
prevent further hemorrhaging, though
Boarded up
they weren’t universally popular within
the company. According to Whelan, some
people refused to “buy into” the vision.
One resigned on good terms; another, a
“very senior” person “absolutely refused
to even consider changing any business
processes, and the whole discussion about
strategic direction went very poorly. That
employment relationship has been severed
with a lot more acrimony.”
In both cases, however, she insists, “the
right thing happened … for the good of the
company, these things had to happen.”
In fact, as a result of these tough
decisions and planning exercises, Seafair
is, arguably, a more resilient company
today than it was a year ago, better
aligned to its opportunities. Revenue levels
have all but recovered their pre-2013
vigour, and CareGivers, in particular, has
just signed a new rolling agreement with
the Government of Newfoundland and
Labrador, the source of its original travails.
Indeed, in recent months, the home care
service has opened two locations, hired
back some of its staff, and submitted a
bid to provide all residential child care
placements in Newfoundland.
Seafair is also pursuing new
acquisitions both domestically and in
the United States. On the industrial side
of the business, it has leased almost
four acres of land in Argentia, near the
Husky GBS build site, and acquired 10
acres of residential land for future rental
development. As Whelan says, she and her
various companies have come a long way
in a short time.
“We currently have on the ‘hot stove’
two active acquisition opportunities
in the home and community care side
of the business, a planned hospitality
development with an equal partner, and
industrial building … So, the challenges
have driven us to create opportunities…
We have a much more robust and mature
team of people to lead the development of
these opportunities. We have the financing
to handle the growth and we’ve taken on
partners where taking on partners makes
sense.”
To be honest, says Anne Whelan
– entrepreneur, CEO, survivor of
tribulations, victor of deals – the greatest
accomplishment of her life, so far, has
nothing to do with the health and wealth
of the business to which she has devoted
so many drops of sweat and tears. It’s
important, yes, even vital to her sense
of self-worth. But, as she says, nothing
trumps the fact that “I have raised a
In addition to her
business interests,
Anne Whelan devotes
considerable time to
industry associations and
community activities. Her
current roster includes:
•
Argentia
Management
Authority
•
Atlantic Canada
Venture Gateway
•
Atlantic Provinces
Economic Council
•
Atlantic Women in
Business Program
•
Corner Brook
Chamber of
Commerce
•
Home Care
Association of
Newfoundland and
Labrador
•
Home from the Sea,
Sealers’ Memorial
•
Institute for
Corporate Directors
•
Newfoundland and
Labrador Angel
Investor Network
•
Newfoundland
and Labrador
Construction Safety
Association
•
Newfoundland and
Labrador Employers
Council
•
Newfoundland and
Labrador Oil and Gas
Industries Association
•
Newfoundland
and Labrador
Organization
of Women
Entrepreneurs
•
Placentia Area
Chamber of
Commerce
•
REAL Kids Program,
City of St. John’s
•
St. John’s Board of
Trade
•
Women Presidents’
Organization
•
Young Parents’
Resource Centre
•
Volunteer case team
judge, MUN Faculty
of Business
May/June 2014 atlanticbusinessmagazine.com
101
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1989 - 2014 25 years of publishing excellence
(Top, l-r): Anne’s mother, Joan Whelan, with
Anne and her aunt Liz at a softball tournament in 1978. (Middle, l-r): Anne Whelan
dancing with her father at her high school
prom in May, 1986. (Above): Anne and Kevin
Woodbury on their wedding day, along with
her daughter Caitlin Whelan.
lovely, kind and intelligent daughter
who is now 21 years old and fi nishing
her third year at Memorial University.
There were a few times along the way
when I wondered if I could even do that
job, never mind do it well… Trying to
be a good mom while trying to build
a business and be self-reliant isn’t an
easy task.”
In fact, it’s the personal relationships
that she has managed to strike and
nurture, thanks in no small measure to
her business orbit, that seem to pique
her interest most keenly these days.
“I see leadership as an opportunity
for service,” she says. “It is important
to contribute to the community, to
volunteer time and resources, to build
a workplace culture where people are
focused on making their own little
corner of the world a bit better. To lead
a company that does good for others
while at the same time does well for
itself is very gratifying.”
That tends to explain why she’s a
member of no fewer than 12 business
associations (including the St. John’s
Board of Trade, Newfoundland and
Labrador Oil and Gas Association
and the Atlantic Provinces Economic
Council) and an equal number of
volunteer boards and committees. “The
more you know, the more possibilities
you see,” she says. “I would really like
to fi nd a way to create a sustainable
cultural industry in my hometown…
I also have this crazy idea to create
handcrafted specialty spirits – perhaps
a gin made from wild, harvested
botanicals. I think that might be my
lifestyle business in 10 years or so.”
For now, at any rate, Whelan has
her eyes trained on Seafair’s next
phase – an extension of the process
she began during her annus horribilis.
Over the next five years, she intends to
make her company far less dependent
on government work (less than 40 per
cent of the business) and far better
positioned to operate in the private
pay markets of the United States. And,
oh yes, “We will be almost double
in revenue with a planned growth
rate of 12 per cent per year, and our
profitability will exceed average rates of
return for our industries.”
That’s not to say there won’t be tough
years ahead. But she’s not complaining.
In fact, when she thinks about the
future, she might even be smiling. •
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Feedback: dchafe@atlanticbusinessmagazine.com;
avbruce@rogers.com; @AtlanticBus; @ABM_Editor;
@brucescribes; @annemwhelan; #CEOoftheYear
May/June 2014 atlanticbusinessmagazine.com
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