After passing through a labyrinth of high walkways, winding staircases and
interconnected chambers, and then
descending into dark subterranean passageways, Jerome Bru had the excited and slightly intimidated look of an explorer who had just penetrated an Egyptian pyramid.
“It’s kind of mind boggling walking through it,” said Bru after finishing his tour of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator at Brada, just outside North Battleford, Sask.
For two hours he and five other pool employees had been checking out the unfinished facility, a giant concrete terminal that is scheduled to open in January.
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They aren’t casual visitors. The elevator will change their jobs and the way their company does business in the area.
For Bru, who has been in the grain business for 28 years and worked at the small Meota pool elevator for most the past decade, the visit is especially relevant. He will be the new elevator’s first manager.
“I could put all the grain from (the Meota elevator) in one bin here,” marveled Bru. Meota has a staff of three to receive, store and ship grain. The Brada elevator will employ 14 people. It will receive, clean, dry and ship grain, and be the centre of the pool’s regional grain marketing strategy.
The Meota elevator has a 14-car-spot. This elevator will eventually spot 100 rail cars.
The new elevator is more complex than the elevator in Meota, and Bru expects it will take a while to get familiar with the huge plant.
“I’ll probably get lost a few times. It’ll be a big learning process.”
The day after the tour, Bru headed to southern Saskatchewan to begin an eight-week orientation program at an operating concrete elevator.
His assistant managers, who have not yet been named, will receive five weeks of training.
Everything the pool does in the North Battleford region will be changed by the facility.
“This is a change from a push system, which is what we have operated, to a pull system,” said Jerry Jensen, Sask Pool’s regional marketing manager.
“Our marketing department will give us some signals (for grain) and we’ll move that back into the country and move the grain
forward.”
Rather than gathering and storing grain, and then finding rail cars to move it, the Brada
elevator will bring in specific varieties and grades of grain after transportation has been arranged.
“A lot of times it will be just-in-time delivery,” said Jensen. “Fifty cars will come in and it (grain) will be out the door.”
Grain will be moved faster and will demand more co-ordination from people like Jensen. He says he’s looking forward to the challenge.
Bru, a short, affable man with a heavy gray moustache, a ready smile and a deep, infectious laugh, climbed around the plant
during the tour, unfazed by the vast scale of his new workplace.
His gregariousness is one characteristic that got him the job, said Brent Dewan, the pool’s regional facilities maintenance supervisor, and Bru’s boss.
“He’s a really likeable guy, and that helps us work with farmers,” said Dewan. “They
all know him.”
The job was advertised throughout the province, but Bru got the job because of his combination of elevator management experience, experience for the last year as an agribusiness account representative and his friendliness.
“He’s good for public relations,” noted
Dewan.
Over the next few weeks the rest of the staff will be chosen. Many are expected to come from the smaller wooden crib elevators that this elevator will replace.
As construction workers finish their
frenetic work and clean out the detritus of creation, they will be replaced by permanent staff who will bring this gigantic structure
to life.
The scream of saws and the vicious whisper of blowtorches will ease into the permanent hum of high-tech grain handling.
