West Coast Helicopters pick up the Business Excellence award for Forestry Company of the Year for Vancouver Island from the Business Examiner.   West Coast provides a wide range of forest services that include cone collection, log slinging, fire protection, crew movements, and seeding and fertilizing.

“We were also one of five finalists in the Green Initiatives category,” said operations manager and co-owner, Peter Barratt.  When the business begain 17 years ago, the owners made a positive move to reinvest profits back into the company.  “We figured if we look after our people then they will look after our company,” said Barratt.

Barratt is also proud he and his partners promote high conservation standards to reduce their carbon footprint. He said that the company’s ethical stance meshed neatly with the green revolution. They had no issues with funding wind power generation, double-sealed fuel storage, high fuel efficiency helicopters and filtering contaminants out of rainwater running off their facility roof in Campbell River.

Barratt hinted there may be a big award coming to West Coast Helicopters in the near future, but would not be drawn on what they hoped it would be .