Mr. Crofford began his career working part-time for the Co-op in Salmon Arm BC during his high school years and full time in 1968 as a hardware clerk in Calgary. After a highly successful 16-year career in various management positions throughout BC and Alberta, he was moved to the home office of Federated Co-operatives as part of a management team charged with turning around the hardware department. Within two years the department was profitable and later the building materials were merged with hardware. In 1994 Vaughn was approached by a couple of vendors to consider the job as President of the then struggling CHHMA. The Association thrived under his leadership as he became a voice for the manufacturers’ side of the industry. Vaughn was an integral part of the formation of the Electrical Stewardship Association which manages recycling programs in BC. He is also the creator of the calculator for determining packaging material responsibilities accepted by all blue box programs across Canada.

Mr. Byle began his career with the Remington Shaver Company in 1969 as Ontario Sales Manager after graduating from Ryerson University. Two years later, he moved over to Philips and became Western Regional Manager in 1978. Later, he was offered a position at Sunbeam and during his time there he met the owner of a start-up company out of Montreal called Bionaire. Over the next 15 years, Gerry went from National Sales Manager to VP Global Marketing, to President of the Canadian and US business units. During that period, sales went from virtually zero to over $80 million. The company went from a private enterprise to publicly traded and was acquired by the Rival Company in 1996. Gerry stayed on as VP International Sales. In 1998, he was hired by Honeywell Consumer Products as the General Manager of its Canadian Division. When Honeywell was acquired by Kaz Inc. in 2002, he remained as General Manager of Kaz Canada until his retirement in December 2010.

After graduating in Sciences at the Université de Montréal and working a few years as a chemistry teacher, in 1973 M. Gagnon took over his family’s general store. This store later became one of the first Rona Renovateur stores in Quebec and M. Gagnon also served time on their Board of Directors. After growing his business, into what today consists of 7 stores and a rental center with over 350 employees, he joined Groupe BMR in 1983 and became President & CEO in 1995 at which time the group consisted of 42 bannered stores with just over $200 million in sales. At the time of his retirement twenty years later, the group had 185 stores with sales reaching $1.5 billion. Under his leadership, BMR expanded to include its own hardware distribution center and trucking division along with a credit and loyalty card program and a training center. They also developed an award-winning EcoAttitude store concept. Outside of work M. Gagnon served on numerous community boards and committees and donates generously to several local and national charities.

Diplômé de l’UdeM et professeur de chimie, Yves Gagnon reprit le magasin de son père en 1973. Il devint l’un des premiers Révovateur Rona au Québec et membre de leur conseil d’administration. Aujourd’hui, Groupe Yves Gagnon compte 7 succursales, un centre de location et plus de 350 employés. En 1983 il joignit le Groupe B.M.R. inc. pour en devenir Président et Chef de la direction en 1995. À ce moment, 42 marchands affichent la bannière BMR pour des ventes de 200M$. Sous son leadership, supporté par une équipe dévouée, Monsieur Gagnon fit de BMR un groupe 100% intégré avec un centre de distribution de quincaillerie, un service de transport, un programme de cartes de crédit et de fidélité, un centre de formation et un concept novateur de magasin primé ÉcoAttitude. En 2015, il légua un groupe fort de ses 185 marchands BMR avec des ventes au détail de 1,5 milliards de dollars. Parallèlement, Yves Gagnon s’impliqua considérablement au sein de sa communauté en tant qu’administrateur de plusieurs organismes et encore aujourd’hui, en tant donateur généreux.