Our 2023 Annual Impact Report is here, showcasing how Kitsaki and its group of companies are creating opportunities through sustainable growth.
This document is a testament to the resilience, innovation, and collaborative spirit that has driven Kitsaki through a remarkable journey of growth and community impact.
You can find the entire report below.
Athabasca Catering Limited Partnership (ACLP) has moved into renovated facilities on reserve at 103 Packham Avenue.
ACLP managing director Alan Cole says the new, 7,000 square foot office space is “absolutely phenomenal.”
“We’ve spent a significant amount of capital investment in renovating it,” Cole said. “We completely gutted it and redesigned it. We put in modular walls, built a 16-seat boardroom. We have the latest smart technology – like an 80-inch screen you can write on or send emails at the touch of a screen.”
They also made sure to address the needs of their workforce such a breakout area for customers, guests and staff to have their lunch along with a separate kitchen.
Five First Nations with Kitsaki as the managing partner own ACLP. The company provides food service, housekeeping, janitorial, mobilization and camp management services. Cole said they now have the ability and capacity to recruit, hire and retain employees that best serve the company’s strategic goals in diversifying into different business sectors.
Cole said the old space ACLP had occupied for the past nine years just didn’t fit with the company’s future. “It didn’t project the right image of where we need to be in terms of customers, suppliers and vendors and anybody else.” Cole said the new space gives a better representation of the work ACLP does.
“We do a superb job in what we do, but what we couldn’t do was showcase our standards and the image we wanted to project in the old office versus what we can do now. “It’s a fundamental shift for our company,” he said. Credit to the entire ACLP team, led by our Finance Director, Robert Cremers in making this huge move possible.
And with ACLP moving out of their old space last November, First Nations Insurance Services (FNIS) saw an opportunity to also make a move.
FNIS were looking for extra office space in anticipation of expanding its business over the next few years.
Greg Hanson, manager of business development with FNIS, said ACLP’s old space fit the bill and they moved in last December after doing major renovations. “It fits in with our three- to five-year strategy to grow. We need office space for new people to come on board as new hires.” FNIS now has five offices as opposed to two and also has a brand new boardroom.
Hanson said the space is needed because it is essential to add more people to the Saskatoon team. “We have clients closer to Saskatoon than Prince Albert (which also has an office) and we are looking to obtain clients that are in the southern part of the province.” Hanson said.
FNIS provides employee benefits for First Nations organizations and non First Nations organizations. FNIS currently has a total of 14 staff with three in the Saskatoon office. Hanson said he hopes to add another employee in Saskatoon in the near future. The new office is also conducive to walk in traffic. “We have street access and it is easier for our employer’s clients to come in and deal with their claim or ask us questions.”
FNIS has been in business since 1987 and Hanson said they want to make sure the company continues to grow in a sustainable way. And with the new office space they now have room to accommodate that growth. “We don’t want to miss the right opportunity when it comes along.”
While Helen Burgess is looking forward to spending more time with all her grandchildren, she will sorely miss her clients and the staff at First Nations Insurance Services (FNIS). Burgess recently retired after spending 22 years as the manager of FNIS.
“I was an emotional wreck for the first week (after retiring) because of the parties held on my behalf,” Burgess said. “I have felt this brokerage deep in my heart for the past 22 years.”
Burgess began her career with FNIS after working at Saskatchewan Legal Aid for 19 years. Burgess said she really didn’t know much about the insurance industry, but it was a chance to work in her community. “To begin with it would take me to a place that I always wanted to be, and that was to work with my First Nations people,” she said.
Burgess said historically First Nations people hadn’t brought a lot of insurance coverage into their lives, never mind the retirement portion of it, and this was a way to bring a great product into their lives.
Back then FNIS was a small enterprise. In fact, the year before she started the business had a net income of $252. But over time Burgess and her staff helped grow the business. She said three employees in particular, Cindy Johnson and Beatrice Arcand, who are still with FNIS, and Stuart McLellan who left a few years ago, were important to growing the business.
“They were absolutely key to my learning and to the success of the brokerage, and continue to be to this day,” Burgess said. “They were really my saviours, my anchors. They just shared the knowledge they had because they had been there for a couple of years already.”
FNIS started out exclusively offering services to Indian bands and their institutions, said Burgess, who is a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. And it differed from anything else on the market because their plans enhanced and protected Treaty health rights, she said. As the years passed FNIS opened their services to more First Nations people in the province and expanded over the border into the North West Territories and northern Alberta, specifically Fort Chipewyan. “We brought the services to the Mikisew Cree Nation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation,” she said. “And we still have those clients to this day.”
Burgess remembers her first flight into Fort Chipewyan in a small, eight-seat airplane from Fort McMurray.
“I do battle claustrophobia somewhat, but I turned it over to some of my traditional beliefs and I just knew the Creator put me where I needed to be at the time and it was all in the Creator’s hands. “However, I will not say I wasn’t afraid,” she said. “It was quite the experience.”
Burgess was a hands-on administrator who travelled to meet her clients wherever they lived in Saskatchewan.
“There isn’t a community I have not been to,” she said. In the past year Burgess stepped aside as manager to work as a licensed agent and to help the new manager, Tammy McKay, get established. She said the best part of the job was building relationships with the staff and clients.
“I didn’t think of them as clients first, but more as friends and family,” she said. “And knowing you were bringing such a positive life change to them.” She said it was so rewarding to explain the importance of having benefits in place and having a plan for retirement. And then to help someone who had a death in the family or who had been stricken with a disability.
Burgess has spent her life helping other people, including her own ever-growing family. She and her husband Larry have three sons, a daughter, 12 grand children and one great grandchild. She had thought about retirement, but when a young friend developed a terminal illness it brought home the fact that life is too short. “Not everyone has the privilege of retiring and it is something we really need to embrace and give a lot of thought to,” she said.
Besides seeing more of their grandkids, Helen and Larry plan on exploring the Yukon and to continue to spend more time near the water at Sandy Lake, not too far from their farm north of Prince Albert. But she won’t forget what an honour it was to manage FNIS.
“Kitsaki gave her the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. “I’ve absolutely loved what I’ve done. That is what I’m really going to miss. The relationships with our client base and the people I worked with at the community and Kitsaki management level.”
It didn’t take much convincing for Greg Hanson to join the team at First Nations Insurance Services (FNIS) after his retirement last fall.
As the First Nations Insurance Services slides into its fourth decade, Helen Burgess still believes the basics haven’t changed for the business.
Burgess, who steered FNIS for 20 years before relinquishing the general manager duties last summer, says her job as helping to protect people and teaching them to prepare for their future has not wavered in all her years.
“I have tried, we all have tried, to help educate the people on the importance of our services,” says Burgess, who is now in her 21st year with FNIS. “We want people to know it’s not just a deduction off your paycheque … It boils down to education. In that regard, that has been the biggest change.”
Helping people understand the importance of insurance as well as the concept of saving for retirement has always been a priority to First Nations Insurance Services.
Part of that is the strength of FNIS and building relationships with its clients, something that was celebrated last June as the firm held its 30th birthday.
Around 75 people attended the event, held June 8, 2017, at the Saskatoon Inn as part of a two-and-a-half day annual benefits workshop. Former employees, corporate partners, insurance carriers and others got together for an evening of celebration which included a performance by Voices of the North. The party gave FNIS a chance to look back and pay tribute to those who had worked tirelessly to help the business flourish.
For Burgess, it was a chance to say goodbye from her chair as general manager, a position she devoted much of her time and energy to for those 20 years. It was under her leadership that FNIS really began to grow into the successful enterprise it is today.
“I made the decision last spring that I wanted to ease into retirement,” says Burgess, who is still a licensed agent for the company as well as providing assistance where needed.
“(The time) has gone by so quickly. It’s hard to imagine that much time has elapsed.”
However, the focus of helping First Nations boards and their respective organizations has not wavered. Even the FNIS staff has not changed or altered much over the years with many people still working with 20-plus years under the belt. That plays into what Burgess says about the importance of building relationships.
“We care about all our clients.”