A company with deep local roots has been profiled province-wide by the provincial government.
Trexiana, owned and operated by former longtime resident Mike Callewaert, was just profiled in the online publication B.C. Job Makers as part of a set of feature articles published by the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training.
Trexiana is based in Surrey and is worldwide in its dealings, but it was born in Prince George where Callewaert got interested in the process of building retaining walls out of interconnecting dirt-filled bags.
The science of this ages-old process had gotten to the point the interlock connections made these walls stronger and more stable than concrete. Callewaert and a team of like-minded engineers and construction professionals formulated their own patented components and processes, and an industry was born that married high-tech with simple-as-dirt.
Their product is called Flex MSE Vegetated Geomodular Wall System. It is used for retaining walls, slope stabilization, erosion control, shoreline protection, trail and road construction, and as an added bonus it is good for wildlife and fish habitat values, mine reclamation values, First Nations environmental preservation values, fish sustainability values, and a number of other natural goals.
It is also light to transport, easy to assemble and turns into nature without losing its industrial properties.
You can see it in use at spots like the ring road at UNBC, the LEED Gold campus of EA Sports headquarters in Vancouver, the on- and off-ramps of Golden Ears Bridge, the Sea To Sky Highway, the new Langford interchanges in Victoria, and that's just some in B.C. These walls are now all over the globe.
"I'm connected to Prince George where I lived for years and years, McBride where my mom and her family are from, and I lived in Mackenzie for awhile and my uncle was a big name in that community," Callewaert said.
"I still feel close to all three of those places and whatever happens for Trexiana, I want this region to always be part of it."
Trexiana fits the B.C. Job Makers bill in a number of ways.
Their distributors hire people who stock the product regionally. In the Prince George area it is Brock White Construction Materials on Ogilvie Street that handles all Flex MSE sales, whether that is for the do-it-yourself landscaper who wants to rejig the contours of the back yard, or a corporation that wants to build a new mine or road.
He added that since the B.C. Job Makers article was posted on the provincial government's website, he has already seen an uptick in interest. With all the oncoming projects in northern B.C., he said, he hopes to see a local product used in his home region to help industry do its job and environmental concerns mitigated all at the same time.
Past P.G. stories in the B.C. Job Makers collection included a profile of Janine North and her team and Northern Development Initiative Trust, and the partnership deal between the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation and Britco.
Other northern content in the series has come in the form of profiling Action Health & Safety Services in Dawson Creek, Posh Pirates Children's Clothing in Prince Rupert, Bartek Wireline Services of Fort St. John, Lapointe Engineering of Kitimat, Filaprint 3D of Tumbler Ridge, and others.
