May 2017 – Sidney Breakfast Club – The “Economic Gardening” organization for the early growth of Lower Vancouver Island’s Technology Industry

The Peninsula is renowned for its beautiful and active maritime, oceanographic and coastal environment. Whereas we’re inclined to appreciate its beauty and tourism related features, it was this ocean environment that provided the catalyst and spark for the region’s initial technology industry cluster to form on the peninsula. Early in the 1980’s through to the 1990’s , the Institute of Ocean Sciences (IOS) laboratories seeded our local community with technology transfers and highly educated, entrepreneurial individuals wanting to start their own private companies. At that same time, the companies recognized that if they were to succeed, they were going to have to cooperate and share business and market knowledge amongst themselves. They consequently created the Sidney Breakfast Club (SBC) in 1992 as an informal group used to discuss their management issues, interact with government agencies and focus marketing efforts. As a direct result, over that period, a core group of about 30 companies were formed and were soon collectively generating over $60M worth of revenues per year with products exported world-wide (thank you Bill Cooke for authoring this paragraph).

Those companies included amongst others Quester Tangent, LGL Limited – Environmental Research Associates, ASL Environmental Sciences, ASL Borstad Remote Sensing, Terra Remote Sensing, AXYS Group, ICC Group, Oceanic Measurement, Jasco Applied Sciences, AML Oceanographic, Aqua Metrics, Coastal & Ocean Resources, Archipelago Marine Research & Western Subsea Technology Ltd.

2017 is the 25th year Anniversary of the Sidney Breakfast Club. The group has recently been hosting speakers that have reflected and provided historical context regarding the SBC’s role in helping build the Lower Vancouver Island Technology Industry. Several of those speaking events were videotaped to ensure we capture the chronology of events and activities during those early Industry building years.

• Terry Curran – P. Eng. – https://harbourdigitalmedia.podbean.com/e/sidney-breakfast-club-march-9th-%E2%80%93-terry-curran-peng/

• Bill Cooke – P. Eng., Chair, Sidney Breakfast Club – https://harbourdigitalmedia.podbean.com/e/sbc-may-11th-%E2%80%93-bill-cooke-peng-chair-sidney-breakfast-club/

Take a peek and re-visit the pioneer days of Lower Vancouver Island’s Technology entrepreneurs and visionaries. The SBC is continuing to operate today and still sharing knowledge with successful experienced CEOs helping new entrepreneurs to grow their own start-up companies.