OUR STORY
Nemanishen Contracting
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The story of Nemanishen Contracting begins in 1928 with the birth of Peter Nemanishen in the town of Langham Saskatchewan and in 1934 with the birth of Irene Nemanishen in Thrums BC. Irene grew up in south eastern BC in the mountains. Peter grew up on a farm with the realities of the dirty thirties and the harsh prairie winters in Saskatchewan. In 1950 Peter left the prairies to work in the logging industry in Parksville on Vancouver Island. While visiting his grandparents in south eastern BC he met Irene. The two got married in 1952 and moved back to the old farm near the town of Langham. Farm life was extremely tough and in the spring after moving back Peter got a job operating equipment for Wells Construction at the Saskatoon airport. The following summer Peter got a job operating a dozer on the new Idylwyld Drive freeway in Saskatoon. After that Peter was offered a job working for Patrick Construction operating equipment for a water and sewer job in Creighton, Saskatchewan. Now with 3 small children (Rick, Randy, and Perry), the whole family decided to move with Peter to the new job. Rick started grade one there. A life of constant travelling for work was beginning to take its toll on the family so the following year they moved back to Langham and Peter got a job working for the local RM operating equipment. The following year the job fell through and left Peter and Irene really pondering their future. The constant struggle of trying to farm and then the difficulties of finding reliable work, particularly close to home now that the three small boys were in the picture brought Peter and Irene to a life changing decision.
In the early 1960’s, they decided purchased their own used dozer and decided to partner with a local farmer who already owned a small dozer and the two began doing bush work together for area farmers. However, it became clear very quickly that Peters passion, hunger and dedication for his work far outweighed his partner and in 1963 Peter and Irene decided to go it alone and P.N. Construction was born. It was an exciting and scary period of time. As the business slowly grew, they bought another used dozer to help and a couple of operators were hired. The equipment was old and unreliable and Peter would often spend the night and weekends fixing it so that it was usable for the morning when the guys showed up. Payroll was difficult to make. At times, Irene would have to physically go to the client to ask for payment just so they could pay the men. Several time, they had to choose between paying themselves or paying the men and they knew they would have no company without the men so they chose to pay them. This caused life to be very difficult at home with 3 young boys. Irene would garden and stretch every bit of food as far as it would go and patch clothing until there was nearly nothing left. Irene did all this while teaching herself how to do the books for the new business while only having a grade 9 education. She would continue to do the books for the business for over 40 years! Irene would also help Peter move equipment on the weekends so that it would be ready for the new jobs for the men on Monday morning. |
Pete and Irene Nemanishen
Langham, SK - Shop/Yard |
Rick, Randy, and Perry began to get involved as a young age. At that point they decided to change the name of the business to its present name, Nemanishen Contracting. Business was still hard but the Nemanishen’s were starting to earn a solid reputation based on honesty, integrity, hard work, and quality work that meets the customers needs. A few years later they got a break when CN Rail hired Nemanishen Contracting to do upgrading to some rail lines. They bought more equipment and build a shop in the town of Langham. As they to continued to focus on their core values the business’s growth increased. Now with Peter and his 3 sons all working full time together they began to take on bigger, more complicated jobs. None embodied this more than winning the contract to do the earthwork for the new Borden Bridge west of Langham over the North Saskatchewan river. A large amount of earth was required to be hauled from one side of the river to the other. Rather than use highway trucks to haul the earth across the existing bridge, the Nemanishens planned to build an ice road across the moving river and haul the earth across in winter with scrapers. To their knowledge this had never been done before but if successful it would save the client considerable time and money. The 3 sons were instrumental in planning, designing and building the ice which included laying steel cables in the river and pumping water to increase the thickness of the ice to support fully loaded equipment. The weather was cold just when it needed to be and warm just when it needed to be. It was also during this job that a great act of vanadalism threatened to end Nemanishen just as the company was hitting its stride. All the tires on all their equipment were drilled and everything was flat when they came to work in the morning. The ingenuity of the Nemanishens took over though and they were able to plug the holes using a variety of creative means. Not all the tires lasted but it worked long enough to be able to finish the job.
Growth for the company increased substantially in the years that followed. Nemanishen Contracting became an earthmover capable of building highways, grid roads, lagoons, subdivisions, driveways, dugouts, lakes, berm and holding cell construction and just about any other kind of earth moving work there was in the area. By sticking to their core values, Nemanishen has grown to be one of the larger earthmoving contractors in the entire province. Their success has been directly attributable to several factors. Along with their core values of honesty, integrity, hard work, and quality work that meets the customer's needs, they’ve recognized that none of it would have happened without many quality dedicated employees. Many workers have remained with the company for 10, 20, 30, even 40 years! They’ve become not just quality workers and employees but in many way part of the family. Nemanishen’s dedication to safety has also been a defining reason for their success. In 60 years of business they’ve never had a serious injury or death on site. Their strict adherence to policies and procedures, qualified supervision, and extensive training have all contributed. However, using a common sense, small town Saskatchewan attitude has really defined the reason for success in creating a safe site. Everyone looks out for each other.
New challenges present themselves regularly. Some of these include the weather, new competition, labor shortages, commodity prices, labor shortages and fluctuations in the economy. There have been many changes over the years including people, technology, and equipment but the core services of the company has not changed. Every change or or service added to the company is done so by ensuring we keep our core values at the forefront to ensure we are enhancing Nemanishen Contracting Ltd., in operations as well as service for our customers. By aligning closely with our values and remembering our history, we are primed for success for decades to come.
Growth for the company increased substantially in the years that followed. Nemanishen Contracting became an earthmover capable of building highways, grid roads, lagoons, subdivisions, driveways, dugouts, lakes, berm and holding cell construction and just about any other kind of earth moving work there was in the area. By sticking to their core values, Nemanishen has grown to be one of the larger earthmoving contractors in the entire province. Their success has been directly attributable to several factors. Along with their core values of honesty, integrity, hard work, and quality work that meets the customer's needs, they’ve recognized that none of it would have happened without many quality dedicated employees. Many workers have remained with the company for 10, 20, 30, even 40 years! They’ve become not just quality workers and employees but in many way part of the family. Nemanishen’s dedication to safety has also been a defining reason for their success. In 60 years of business they’ve never had a serious injury or death on site. Their strict adherence to policies and procedures, qualified supervision, and extensive training have all contributed. However, using a common sense, small town Saskatchewan attitude has really defined the reason for success in creating a safe site. Everyone looks out for each other.
New challenges present themselves regularly. Some of these include the weather, new competition, labor shortages, commodity prices, labor shortages and fluctuations in the economy. There have been many changes over the years including people, technology, and equipment but the core services of the company has not changed. Every change or or service added to the company is done so by ensuring we keep our core values at the forefront to ensure we are enhancing Nemanishen Contracting Ltd., in operations as well as service for our customers. By aligning closely with our values and remembering our history, we are primed for success for decades to come.