More John Lake

John Lake is one confident entrepreneur. Born in England, he moved to Australia at age seven, and in his late twenties began his own machine maintenance business, Lake Engineering, out of his backyard. "I observed that the company I was working for previous to Lake Engineering didn’t treat its customers very well," he said. The observation was a key factor in his decision to become self-employed, and he’s never looked back.

One day John was chatting with his future wife, Lenora Diane, over MSN. She lived in Rossland and John, a skier with the thought of coming to Canada for a holiday, asked her if there were any mountains near her. "Shows you how ignorant I was of Canada. I knew there was Whistler and mountains like that but I had no idea there were so many ski hills," he said. In 1999, after selling his business, he came to Canada for a holiday.

"Business is really in my blood, I think," he said, looking back at how things unfolded once he was in Canada. In his own mind he expected to stay only for a couple years. There was always the possibility of starting his own Canadian business, but he hoped to do something totally different from engineering – something along the lines of ski touring or photography. Life, however, took an unexpected twist not long after his ‘holiday’ began.

He had met Richard Exner, owner and president of XL Welding, and Exner felt that with John’s experience he would be a good addition to the company. A couple years later, circumstances changed, and John had the option of buying the business or moving back to Australia. In the end, he and his wife Lenora bought the business. "If I didn’t do anything about XL at that time, it would have shut down and there would have been fourteen people out of work," he said. "I would have felt that I was letting them down if I had left at that point."

At a seminar he once attended in Australia, John remembers something one of the speakers said that has made a great impact on the way he views his business. "You’ll take the next important step in your business when you stop working in your business and work on it."

"The difference is very subtle but very important," John commented. "Some people, all they do is work, work, work in the business and in the shop, but you need to take a bird’s eye view and work on the business, so you look at the business from another aspect. You look at the big picture and instead of being tethered by the day-to-day trials and tribulations of the business, you work on it."

The "bird’s-eye view" is the one John has adopted as he manages his business and watches it grow. Experience and knowledge he gained in Australia has helped immensely in operating XL, and it has grown even better than John originally expected.

Projects XL has worked on include an 11ft 140ft long steel trestle for Cominco and specialized aluminum equipment for BC Hydro. XL is the only certified aluminum shop in the area.

According to John, his greatest triumph is "making XL a success story." Success, according to XL’s newest owner, requires tenacity. "You have to really believe in what you’re doing," he said. "You have to be financially responsible, but at the same time you have to take some risks. If you limit the risk, you limit the reward."

Contact Info

XL Quality Industrial Services Inc

15 Park Road

Trail BC V1R 4X7

Phone: 3676577 Fax: 367 7510

Email:  XL(at)netidea.com

Owners: John Lake/Lenora Diane

Date Started: 1993

Hours and days of operation: Mon-Fri 7:00am-3:30pm