BC's Top Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 44
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BC’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
EAG is adding employee owners to a family business
J
oining the team at Emil
Anderson Group to work on
the massive Kicking Horse
Canyon highway expansion
project in Golden, B.C., was a
roll of the dice for Erin Kearney.
Coming from an oil and gas background, the project co-ordinator
was unsure what to expect – but
the bet paid off.
“I took a bit of a leap of faith, as I
had never worked in construction
before,” says Kearney. “That was
almost three years ago – I've loved
it.”
Being thrown into a major
project from the start was an
exciting learning experience
for Kearney, who had spent the
previous year working from home
due to the pandemic.
While the hands-on aspects
of the job were a big upside for
Kearney, it was the people at Emil
Anderson that really sold her on
the group.
“When I came back to the
Kelowna office and interacted
with the people, I really felt that
this was the right choice for me,”
she recalls.
Kearney was taken by the
closeness of the culture at EAG,
where senior leadership knows
employees by name and will make
time to ask how they are doing.
“Everybody knows you and that
makes it really intimate,” she says.
“It feels like they really care about
your career development and not
just about you being productive.”
As a fourth-generation family
company, EAG has putting people
first in its DNA. But being able to
maintain the family feeling as the
company has scaled – or “staying
small” as CEO Robert Hasell puts
it – is no coincidence.
“We put a lot of energy into our
culture to make sure people feel
like they belong,” says Hasell,
whose great-grandfather, Emil
Anderson, founded EAG in 1938.
“It's a lot of work, but it's also
probably the single most important thing for any business.”
The result is that even though
the company has grown sizably
to about 600 employees, it still
has a small company feeling,
Hasell explains.
After years of research, the
familial culture has also made its
way into succession planning for
the company, which rolled out a
new employee ownership model
at the end of 2024.
“We saw it as a great way to
evolve and set a foundation for
the future of the organization,”
Hasell says. “There’s going to be a
ton of power in having employees
more involved over time, become
owners and adopt an ownership
mindset.”
We put a lot of energy
into our culture to make
sure people feel like they
belong. It's a lot of work,
but it's also probably the
single most important thing
for any business.
— Robert Hasell
CEO
Employees at Emil Anderson Group complete work on the GEC Tzeachten Longhouse, a milestone collaborative project for the company.
Being people-focused also
means putting community first,
whether through its projects,
charitable giving or strengthening
diversity in the construction
industry through the Women of
EAG (WEAG) committee.
“Being in a male-dominated
industry can be really lonely for
a lot of women,” says Kearney, a
member of WEAG.
In three years, Kearney has
already seen an uptick in the
number of women on board and
appreciated the connections made
