In 1962, when Bob Stewart and Ivan Andersen became business partners as lumber wholesalers after years of working in the Sinclair Mills planer mill northeast of Prince George, they ran into a bit of problem.
They decided to name their business Sinclair Enterprises Ltd., and already had in their possession their corporate seal, used to stamp important documents and contracts, when they found out from the corporate registry that name was already taken.
Instead of going through the time and hassle of ordering a new stamp, they got creative and took out a chisel to knock out the letter ‘I’ in the name.
As a result, the company became known Sinclar Enterprises Ltd and continues today as Sinclar Group Forest Products Ltd.
After years of working together at Sinclair Mills, Stewart and Andersen decided to go out on their own in business when the mill was sold to Noranda Inc., and neither had any interest in moving to the company’s headquarters in Toronto.
Utilizing Andersen’s accounting skills and Stewart’s familiarity with lumber producers in the region, they became successful wholesalers buying and selling lumber from independent sawmills in the area and quickly gained a reputation for their fair business practices and willingness to develop partnerships that benefited the community.
Starting out as one of 20 wholesalers competing for business in the region, it wasn’t long before buyers copped on that they offered something different from their competitors.
“The wholesalers were always playing the rift between lumber producers and the sales, and the sales guys were always trying to get much as they could, and Ivan and Bob said ‘No, we’re not going to do that,” said John Andersen, a director of Andersen Holdings.
“We’re going to charge you a (set) commission, and within a year or two they were the only lumber wholesalers in the Prince George area. Everybody recognized the integrity of these two gentlemen, that you never had to worry about your money.”
They paid the highest prices and went out of their way to protect those small producers from the ebbs and flows of the sawmill market and stuck by their beliefs that their biggest asset was the people who worked for them.
“By reputation and in my experience with any of their divisions, suppliers were treated with the greatest respect and they were always paid on time and in full,” said Ken McIntosh, founder of Prince George manufacturing company, KJM Sales. “They were seasoned operators and I never once heard a bad word about the way they conducted business. That’s how they lived, they were such good guys. They were people to be admired and imitated.”
As successful businessmen they recognized some central Interior mills were struggling to survive and traded capital to keep them running with shares in those companies. In the late 1960s Stewart and Andersen expanded their operations to lumber manufacturing when they teamed up with other families in the region to take over sales at Apollo Forest Products in Fort St. James and the L&M Lumber in Vanderhoof, and in 1971 they opened the Nechako Lumber planer mill in Vanderhoof and began to produce studs they sold to the Japanese market.
Their continued success led to purchases of two Prince George sawmills — Lakeland Mills in 1973 and The Pas Lumber Company in 1987. Under Stewart and Andersen’s leadership they reached out to the Nak’azdli First Nation to create Tl’oh Forest Products in 1995 in Fort St. James.
Stewart died in 2003, followed by Andersen in 2011 and on May 5, 2025 in a ceremony in Vancouver they were inducted into the Business Laureate BC Hall of Fame.
The award recognizes the lifetime achievements of outstanding BC business leaders whose efforts have shaped our province and country.
Sinclar president Greg Stewart says the principles of running a third-generation family business established by his grandfather Bob and Ivan Andersen continue to guide the company’s daily operations.
Now operating five companies, the Sinclar Group Forest Products Ltd. annually produces 400 million board feet of lumber and has 450 employees.
“The longevity and resilience of the business is largely attributed to the people, we’ve been very fortunate to have people who are very passionate about their community and passionate about the business,” said Stewart.
“They’re willing to go to the ends of the earth to make sure it’s a success.”
