BEATRICE FLOCH, 59, owner and managing partner of Spirit Staffing, Edmonton

Beatrice Floch moved from Winnipeg to Edmonton in 1979, applied for five jobs and got three of them. For almost 20 years, she sold steel tubular pipes for pipeline supply companies and then switched gears and became a pipeline estimator.

By 2003, she had built up a lot of contacts in the oil and gas industry and, at 45, she was starting to feel too old for the job. There was a lot of travel involved in estimating pipeline costs, and her younger colleagues always wanted to go to the bar or out for pizza after work.

“Alberta was going pretty strong with $350 billion in projects upcoming and a shortage of technical workers,” she says. “I saw an opportunity to open my own business.”

Her younger sister had started an employment agency in Calgary in 1998, catering mainly to white-collar clients and connecting First Nations workers with jobs in the city. Floch opened an Edmonton branch of Spirit Staffing with her sister’s blessing and a $28,000 loan from Alberta Women Entrepreneurs, a not-for-profit that helps women build suc- cessful businesses. “We chugged along for three months without making a nickel,” Floch recalls. “I was really frugal and I worked around the clock.”

When the bottom fell out of the oil and gas sector, Floch got another $100,000 loan from AWE in January 2017 to switch tacks and train workers in safety certifications like working in confined spaces and fall protection; the loan will be paid off within the next month or two. Though there are few production jobs, all plants hire hundreds or even thousands of workers for routine maintenance. Last year, Floch placed 144 workers at a job site, and 67 of them were of aboriginal descent.

As a Métis born in Roblin, Man., to a Cree-speaking mother, an important part of Floch’s work is helping First Nations in Western Canada get the jobs in their backyards.

The company has grown by 500 per cent, but cash flow is a constant worry, her old contacts are retiring, she feels overwhelmed by new technology and the boom-bust cycle is taking its toll.

“The older you get, the less energy you feel,” says the 59-year-old. “It’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, here we go again.’ I’ve been working in this industry since 1979 and I’ve seen 2,000 people in a day laid off.”