Arrow Transportation Systems Inc. has grown exponentially in the last 10 years, and with that, comes expansion in northern B.C.
Arrow is constructing a new facility in Prince George, which is expected to be completed by the summer.
Jacob Adams, Arrow’s Prince George operations supervisor, says Arrow decided to make the expansion into Prince George because they were able to sign a long-term partnership with Canfor Pulp in the region.
“We’ve been working on a proposal for about a year and a half to bid on a bunch of work up in this area, and we were fortunate enough to be selected to do a lot of the chip hauling,” he said. “So back about a year ago, Canfor selected us, and ever since then, we have started to build up our division here. Once we knew we had a dedicated partner in Canfor who was willing to invest in us and provide us with the work, we started building up our division.”
Over the past year, Arrow has hired close to 70 people and built up in this region from “just a couple of trucks and trailers” to over 30 trucks and trailers and 60 drivers, says Adams.
“We’ve really been able to grow, and we’ve slowly built up to the commitments that we have,” he said. “It’s kind of one of those feel-good startup stories. When I moved up here to oversee this operation, I moved in here and we had a portable, literally a little trailer sitting in a yard, and we had to keep the water running so the pipes didn’t freeze. It was just one office room where I was situated. Since then, we’ve turned this little trailer into five offices with a bunch of dividers, and we’ve rented a little shop next door to temporarily use. We’ve totally overgrown our site, but we’re just waiting for our new facility to get built.”
Adams says they will break ground on the new facility this spring.
“Over the last six months, they worked on the Hydro, the power, the lighting, kind of the infrastructure before the building,” he said. “Everything from grading the road and putting down support beams, things like that. Now they’re going to start breaking ground in the spring, and it should be up and running by the summer.”
Adams says Arrow invested about $3 million into the new facility.
“It’s going to be a state-of-the-art trucking facility,” he said. “There are going to be three big bays, which I know a lot of mechanics are excited about new shops, new tools. We’ll have a new driver room. It’s just a really classy facility.
“A lot of people are excited about the company wanting to invest in new stuff for these guys.”
Adam says Arrow has a lot of great people working for them who have been working long hours to make this expansion work.
“We have a really good group of guys,” he said. “We’re happy to be able to provide them with good pieces of equipment, a good yard, good management, and I think we’re going to be building something special here.”
Adams thinks the new Prince George facility will not only open doors for Arrow for growth, but also encourage other companies to invest in this region.
“I think it opens more doors for more companies to invest in the north,” he said. “Areas like Mackenzie, Prince George, Vanderhoof, Quesnel don’t necessarily get the same level of business investment as the Vancouvers and Kelownas and the Victorias of British Columbia, but for us to see the potential up here and to work with the people up here, I think that is inspiring. So I would hope to see more companies invest up here and a lot of companies realize there is a lot of potential and there are a lot of good, hard-working people who live in this region.”
Adams says Arrow is always expanding and growing, and this new facility, which will be located off the Hart Highway in the northern part of Prince George, is yet another example of that growth.
“In the last 10 years, we’ve gone from about an $80-million company to almost a $400-million company, so we’ve grown almost five-fold in the last 10 years,” he said. “And we’ll continue to grow and take on new work and to build our resources up.”
Adams says there is a truck driver shortage in Prince George right now, and people were telling them they wouldn’t make it and they wouldn’t be able to hire new people. In the last year, Arrow has proven those people wrong.
“There’s a shortage because there aren’t enough drivers who are being treated right,” said Adams. “If people are working 60, 70 hours a week, they expect a good facility, good equipment and just to be treated with respect, and I think we’ve been able to do that. A lot of guys we’ve hired have come form other trucking companies around here and have really enjoyed it, and we have the lowest turnover rate in the province right now for chip hauling, which is unheard of for a startup. That’s because of the quality of guys we’ve hired and I think just the way we are running things.”
Arrow has grown to almost 1,300 employees, with drivers in Alberta and B.C., notes Adams.
“I always kind of laugh, and I tell people if you ever needed to get from Peace River, which is in the very north of Alberta, down to Vancouver, all you’d have to do is put on an Arrow shirt and an Arrow hat and you could hitchhike the whole way down because we literally have drivers who go from our Peace River division to Grande Prairie to Chetwynd, down into Prince George, through Quesnel,down to 100 Mile, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Vancouver,” he said.
