REGINA, Sask. — The efforts of a Saskatoon family in the home construction and development sector were celebrated last week.
Wally and Colleen Mah, of North Ridge Development Corporation of Saskatoon, were the subject of the latest movie presentation at the North Saskatoon Business Association’s Popcorn and Entrepreneurship event at Mosaic Stadium in Regina on Sept. 23.
Those in attendance went out into the grandstand to watch the documentary In for the Long Run – The Mah Legacy screened on the SaskTel Jumbotron.
It is the second year the NSBA has held its screening event in Regina, after honouring Paul J. Hill of The Hill Companies last year.
This year’s documentary showcased how North Ridge Development Corporation rose from humble beginnings to become a major player in housing development in Saskatoon and area, and now in Regina as well.
“This movie is something that is a little different than I thought it would be,” Wally said to SaskToday after seeing the documentary for himself.
“But we are very pleased with how Bamboo Shoots has done this. And we should be very thankful that NSBA, an organization in Saskatoon, has asked us to do this. We are quite honoured by it.”
According to its website, North Ridge has built nearly 8,000 homes in more than 151 communities designed for living since 1983.
Theirs is a Saskatchewan success story, but also one that was born out of a lot of hard work and struggle along the way.
The film documented some of the struggles Wally and his business partner Julius (Jules) Calyliuk faced just getting their homebuilding business off the ground in the early 1980s, with Wally ultimately leaving behind his job at Canada Revenue Agency to pursue his dream.
Finding funds in those early years took a lot of “creative financing,” as he explained in the question-and-answer session at the event.
“Our business is controlled by banks and if you go to a bank with an idea that isn't checked off, their box isn't checked off, you're not going to get a loan. And so we were very fortunate to have people that Jules, my partner, we're very good friends with. And so we actually ended up financing a lot of that through personal friends.”
The film also documented some of those hard times from the early 1990s, when the company was left deep in debt and on the brink of bankruptcy. Wally made a conscious decision not to declare bankruptcy and to pay back the debt. It took seven years and a lot of late nights and missed family time for that debt to be paid off.
At the question-and-answer session afterwards, his wife Colleen told emcee Dave Thomas about those struggles.
“It was a hard time. Both of us have been raised in families that honesty and integrity were everything. You don't cheat. You don't lie. You don't run away from anything.
“… But really, in all honesty, Wally did go. He talked to everybody, explained the situation, and said to them, if you stay with me, I will pay you back. And that was ’92. …
“The other thing to remember, that we could have run away. We would have had to declare bankruptcy. Or if any of those (construction) trades would have said no, it would have forced us into bankruptcy. But they had been dealing with Wally, and they knew that he was a very honest, very reputable person. And he honestly would do a deal with a handshake. And he would honour that deal. He would not renege on it. And so right from day one, that was the reputation of Northridge.”
“Those times are still embedded in my thoughts,” Wally said to SaskToday.
“And even as time passes, I think the lessons that we learn from our own mistakes, and I fault myself for letting this company get into a situation that was catastrophic at that time. So with those lessons, we have become a better company.
“And what's the saying? Education costs money.”
He pointed to lessons from that experience for other entrepreneurs out there.
“We are lucky that we have been able to be successful through good and bad times. And that is the message that I would tell any entrepreneur is that without those struggles, and whether you get up or not is the difference between success and failure. Somebody has got to get up.”
Colleen ended up joining the company in 1998, and Wally thinks of it as a family business. They have two sons, Patrick and Steven, and their family joined in the celebration at the Popcorn and Entrepreneurship event.
Wally told the audience he was very confident that his son Pat, who is now the CEO, “has the tools to make this company survive for the next generation.”
“Just seeing him operate and understanding his work ethic, understanding his compassion and empathy for his own employees, and just the amount of forethought that he makes or takes to take our company to the next level, which is either through AI or other processes that he's streamlining.”
While he’s confident about the future, Wally noted that the “survival rate of first generation to second generation (businesses) is maybe 30 per cent. But to go from the second generation to the third generation is maybe 10 per cent.”
Success has also allowed the Mah family to give back through charitable endeavours, including their support of EGADZ and its Sweet Dreams supportive housing project.
“One of the things that I realized is how lucky we are to be born in Canada,” Wally said. “But children are the most vulnerable because it's not their decision to be on this earth. And so we really feel that if we don't help that generation succeed, that their future is very bleak. And because those opportunities are limited, especially because of sometimes their lifestyles of their parents. Colleen and I both feel that that's something that we can do and we're happy to do.”
After years of struggle, Wally has finally been able to enjoy the fruits of his hard work. As a gift to himself, he bought himself a “James Bond” car — a BMW. Except his business partner’s truck ended up running over it.
“I knew even though my partner ran me over with it, with his truck, that was the time that I said, you know what, after seven years of struggle, and I mean literal struggle, I knew at that point in time that we had made it.”
These days, Wally is finally able to step back and smell the roses a bit.
“My wife and I, we spend six months away. Last year, we spent seven months away. We spent five months in Mexico and two months in Europe.
“Yeah, we're enjoying ourselves. The only thing that money can't buy is time. And our time is limited because of our age. So it's a time to reflect on and let the younger generation carry on and have fun running that business.”
