BGE Indoor Air Quality Solutions has one driving focus – clean air for all. It may sound simple but from airborne viruses to wildfire particulate, air purity truly has many moving parts. BGE takes on the challenge thanks to nearly 60 years of progressive experience in filtration, IAQ advisory, educational services and controlled environment testing. Here is the story of how BGE helps Canadians breathe easier.
In 1968, Darrel Sutton was working for an engineering firm and was pivotal in launching that firm’s replacement filter division and negotiating an exclusive supplier agreement. When that company later wanted to exit the filtration business – which Sutton had grown across Alberta and Saskatchewan, he was given the opportunity to buy the division as its own entity with a few other business partners, and from the 1970s through the 1990s, expanded BGE across Western Canada and evolved from distribution into manufacturing.
“In the 1990s we grew from three locations to seven,” says Executive Director and Co-Owner Roberta MacGillivray. “My dad had a very charismatic and inspiring ability to rally people together. He really believed in building culture and building up how we treat each other from team members to clients, vendors and in the communities we serve. As we grew, we bottled up what made our culture endearing and continue to use it as the foundation for our continued growth.”
MacGillivray, who started at BGE as the HR Manager, helped to formalize the corporate culture as she built out the HR, safety, training, marketing, IT and other aspects of the brand. The focus has never been only on sales; she continues the foundational values set by Sutton 57 years ago: clean air backed by a team-focused workplace that is firmly rooted in caring about those around them – in and out of the office.
“Together we are better. Be the experts. Striving for excellence,” MacGillivray lists the values that underscore every action of BGE. “These values, set by my father, are the table stakes for our organization. We further developed those values when I became President, ensuring they are espoused by the team with the same weight we measure job skills.”
“The heart of what we do is to provide clean air,” she continues. “While filters are a large part of this, we truly pride ourselves on expanding clean air solutions beyond products. A filter must be properly chosen and fitted – and there must be testing, education, research and follow up around filtration for that filter to be effective. Now BGE can monitor, verify and troubleshoot air quality in real time.”
For example, BGE can go into a school and do spot testing to monitor air quality, and they can also install ongoing continuous monitoring that allows the school administration to look at the results in real time. This is invaluable in times of wildfire, excess pollen during the spring or even when the science lab is doing experiments.
The monitoring does not stop there.
“Where we set up sensors, if our clients see the CO2 climbing or airborne particulate rising, they can improve the indoor air quality within minutes due to the strategies we teach them. We help clients with different strategies to get the best operating environment under normal conditions and augment under extraordinary conditions.”
BGE deploys this blend of products, education and care across every industry, from odor control in wastewater plants to toxic gas management in production facilities, from protecting a patient in an operating room to protecting a healthcare professional working with an infectious disease. BGE has solutions and strategies for all of this, and more.
“Our care is not limited to people,” MacGillivray adds. “We also protect equipment getting coated or painted. Anywhere you need clean air for people, processes and equipment, we are there.”
A big part of the successful strategy is how BGE blends an understanding of client needs with an understanding of what motivates their own team.
“What we really like to do is understand the goals of the client and make sure when it comes to clean air for whatever their needs are, we are helping clients do their best work.
“When we talk to our staff, we ask them, ‘What gets you out of bed in the morning?’ It’s when they are called because of a breakdown in a sterile compounding pharmacy, they want to repair and test equipment to make sure chemotherapy isn’t uninterrupted for pediatric cancer treatment, etc. What gets our people out of bed is knowing that we provide essential services. We are so excited about the meaningful impact we have across vital industries. We are just so proud to be a part of it all.”
Among BGE’s extensive list of projects, MacGillivray points to the University of Alberta (U of A), who has been a client since her father started the brand.
“We designed a lot of our filtration products and services as we worked with them. They were supportive of our research and development efforts. I remember sitting with a previous Director of Facilities and asking him about BGE’s overall impact. He said because of the preventative maintenance practices BGE helped them set up in the 1980s, the university has been able to extend the life of its capital assets. Not only were we providing clean air, we prolonged the HVAC assets far beyond their anticipated life cycle. This meant more of the capital budget could be allocated to other areas that required improvement and helps promote a clean, safe facility for higher learning.”
MacGillivray describes how BGE continues to evolve with the times.
“We have been able to build our expertise, products and solutions around harsh winter days and hot humid days, thanks to building around the demands of Western Canada’s climate and natural resource rich industries. As the market was changing, BGE updated its mandate to ensure we have the right products at the right time for any situation. This meant really looking even deeper into evolving our customer base, understanding their needs and continuing to deliver.”
A great example of this is seen in how BGE is helping firefighters battling the annual wildfires in western Canada.
“Firefighters camp in tents close to wildfire activity,” MacGillivray explains. “We worked with BC Wildfire Fighters to come up with a way of cleaning the air inside the tent when the wildfighters are resting. This resulted in getting the air quality from PM2.5 down negligible amounts – despite the tents not being sealed.”
The level of care and detail extends deep into the community as BGE also has a passion for giving back. The company and Sutton family recently donated $500,000 to Alberta’s renal program through the University Hospital Foundation.”
There is a personal connection, MacGillivray shares.
“My aunt was one of the first Canadians on dialysis in this program. My father’s family had to move to Edmonton so she could get treatment. So, when an opportunity arose to provide dialysis for people at home or in rural communities, we were happy to support it. This has been an incredibly important cause for us.
Giving back with a focus on filtration doesn’t stop there! BGE is also proud to support the Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation’s DIY air purifier system.
She explains, “It’s an accessible room air purifier made from a box fan with filters around it. It allows you to create a room purifier for under $100, with replacement filters under $50 every six months. This program started outside of Canada, and we will now be the Canadian donator of the filters. If a school, for example, has a project and requires filters, they can apply to have us donate them.”
This also applies to community centres housing people fleeing wildfires, schools doing science projects or teaching students about filtration, community spaces that need extra care during cold and flu season and odor control in gyms and cafeterias.
“There is so much value in that program,” MacGillivray smiles, “and we are not stopping there. We have reignited our social committee. They are tasked with finding causes near and dear to our staff that we can rally around as a team. This includes the MS Walk as one example of how we are working together to help team members meet their charitable goals.”
As MacGillivray reflects on the incredible journey of this family owned and operated business, she realizes that things have come full circle. She joined, initially to help build the HR department before she and her husband would later own BGE. Now, that same HR department, has been recognized for its innovation and recent accomplishments.
Underscoring the recognition through Canadian HR Reporter is BGE’s digital migration to ensure an empowered recruitment process; an onboarding procedure that addressed previous gaps and includes a focus on the company’s history, values and culture; a critical checkpoint at 45 days in for new hires, which has reduced first year turnover; and enhanced training offered during work hours.
Interviewed about the HR award win, Carrie Beckett, BGE’s Director of People & Culture, noted that with seven locations across Canada, a focus on, “getting as many tools and as much information into our leaders’ hands as possible and give them the capabilities and skills so they can do the right thing because they’re the ones talking to the employees daily,” is critical.
“Everyone learns differently, but the newer generations are so used to getting information quickly and being able to search things out. Our job for the next few years is to ask ourselves, how do we create tangible learning experiences for everyone that are tailored to them and the newer generations who don’t want to sit in front of a spreadsheet looking at data?”
Another recognition comes from the Building Owners and Managers Association, better known as BOMA, for BGE’s outstanding service in air quality management for BC hospitals during wildfire seasons.
Filtration. It seems like a simple concept driven by a simple product, but in the hands of BGE it is a live concept that embraces the team, the community, the clients, and the very future of clean air. Be it an enhanced HR system empowering the team or a filtration system that keeps firefighters safer in their tents, extending the life of the U of A’s capital assets or reducing pathogens in an elementary school classroom, filtering kidneys or filtering the air you breathe, BGE is on a mission that comes down to one thing: clean air for all.
“I want to thank my father for what he built,” says MacGillivray. “As a child, I always wanted to follow in his footsteps. He was incredibly charismatic and he made the work exciting. I am also grateful to the key leaders in our organization, including Kevin Delahunt who was a business partner of my fathers and now a member of our advisory team. My mother is the silent hero in all of this. She was my father’s business partner, confidant and created a great environment for our family as my father made sacrifices to grow the business. I am incredibly grateful to my husband. We never thought we would go into business together or be business partners. My husband is now the CEO, leading us on the path to the future of clean air.”
That future is incredibly exciting for MacGillivray and her team.
“BGE recently acquired a controlled environment testing company with 40 technicians across Canada. This helps us pursue our goal of being the leader in air quality in controlled and non-controlled environments across the nation.”
MacGillivray concludes, “As BGE continues to grow, we understand that uncontrolled growth would mean a loss of the knowledge and unique needs of every customer. Therefore, retaining the company’s DNA is our focus as we continue to expand across Canada. We will grow the skillset of our team and remain uniquely Canadian while contributing to our local landscape. We will ensure that every client of ours, large or small, can breathe clean air.
Learn more online at bgecleanair.com.
