Recycling Pioneer Mike Roberge named to WCTD Hall of Fame
Western Canada Tire Dealers is proud to induct Mike Roberge into the WCTD Hall of Fame for 2014
Meet Mike
Mike grew up in Piedmont, 45 minutes north of Montreal. He enjoyed a great upbringing, attending a small school with just 300 kids. His parents made sure their kids learnt how to ski, play hockey and golf by the age of 8.
“We spent a lot of time in the “woods” hiking and hunting. I was very fortunate to have such outgoing parents,” he says.
Growing the work ethic
As a teen, summers were spent working in the tobacco fields of Ontario around Strathroy–getting much needed cash flow for going back to school!!
“Earning your own money was common practice then, says Mike, who also taught skiing from the age of 13 (on weekends) until he finished high school.
“Having cash was just as important as eating. None of my friends ever expected our parents to “pay” our way. I moved out on my own around 17 years of age.”
After high school Mike taught skiing full time and sold women’s clothing (wholesale) in the Maritimes during the off seasons for a couple of years.
By the time he turned 20 he had twice hitch hiked across Canada and part of the USA.
He fell in love with the mountains of BC so moved out west when he was 21.
A close call and a new calling
Mike soon found his feet driving off highway logging trucks up Harrison Lake in the Fraser Valley. One day he hitched a float plane ride out of a lake north of Pitt Lake where He was camped out for a few weeks. They crashed on a snow pack and had to walk out. But no one was injured–and the very next week Mike started to take flying lessons.
Within ten months Mike had his commercial license and at 23 years old started a flying career that lasted 26 years. “It became a real passion,” he says.
After flying in BC and the Yukon, He got a job offer to fly a “bird dog” for a forest fire control company in Red Deer. He moved onto the water bombers flying a B-26, an old world war II aircraft. In 1994 he became the lead pilot on a Lockheed Electra, a 4 engine turbine aircraft and became a key player with Air Spray developing and training pilots their 4 engine fleet. Today, Airspray is regarded as a world leader in forest fire control using fixed wing aircraft.
New beginnings: Recycling
In 2000, Mike gave up aviation and turned his attention to Western Rubber, the tire recycling business he started in 1989.
One weekend he noticed a small pile of retreaded rubber at a Vancouver tradeshow. It was a company in Cranbrook that needed rubber for mats. They claimed to have the equipment to make the rubber from truck tires and small OTR’s and were working on equipment to recycle passenger tires. As it turned out, the equipment never worked — but it did get Mike involved in the business. “It felt like we were right up to our necks in quick sand from the get go,” he says. ” We had many tough years at the start. Between the partners, we didn’t have deep pockets—which ended up being a blessing or we would have done what so many other companies tried—buy turnkey plants, which back then were not successful, as the industry was still in its infancy. We had to make do and try many different things. Just about ever piece of equipment we bought ever worked as advertised so we had to improvise and find ways to make them work. This took many years of trial and error to develop the right process.”
“We owe our success to having a good functional group of partners and great employees who believed in the vision — that there was a need to recycle tires and that it would turn into a real business.”
Defining moments
Mike credits then OK Tire president Don Blythe for their first big break. Don leased OK’s retread area to Western Rubber. At the time, everyone thought the very idea of recycling was “crazy” and the company couldn’t even get a business license. Western Rubber ended up being grandfathered under retreading at the OK Tire building… “So New Westminster ‘sort of” had to give us a business license,” says Mike. He adds.
“Don is still a huge supporter and participant of tire recycling and a very big reason why tire recycling has been so successful in BC. He works relentlessly to this day as Chairman of TSBC.”
Kal Signs On:
The next big break came courtesy of Kal Tire, when Ken Finch let Western Rubber take some of their truck tires. “Ken was even willing to pay us a little more than what other recyclers were charging as tipping fees,” says Mike, who says he believed Kal felt a corporate responsibility to help support the evolution of tire recycling. Being able to grow into collecting tires at all of Kal’s stores was a defining moment as it meant Western Rubber was now in every major town in BC.
“We had tires in every major town and we thought if we gave good service to all the other stores as well, we would beat out the competition. And we did, rather quickly”, says Mike.Today, Western Rubber is responsible for collecting tires at over 3,300 points of collection with next to zero collection complaints.
Industry takes the lead
When the BC government decided to get out tire recycling, Tire Stewardship BC was formed and a business plan developed. Don Campbell and the Rubber Association of Canada took the lead drove it home in consultation with the other board members.
At one point it appeared that the ministry of environment was refusing to give up the program. Western Rubber decided to stop taking tires, which forced them to abandon the program and pass it on to TSBC. Mike says it was a big risk as we only had the “one bullet” —but it worked quickly. Tires were piling up—and their phone never stopped ringing. “It was the right thing to do as the results have proved, he says.”
What’s next?
Mike is involved in Inpress Technologies Inc., which has developed a process that allows rubber to be used as a replacement for plastic. It lowers overall production costs by acting as a filler for a portion of the plastic in products. The process, now licensed to a firm with products being sold in Canadian Tire, Home Depot and Wall Mart to name a few.
He and his partners have also purchased a plastic injection molding company and are working with other companies in the U.S. and Canada to could use tire rubber in their products to help lower their costs.
He consults on the viability of recycling mining tires outside of North America.
Says Mike: “It’s a whole new area of recycling that is coming into its own. Tire manufacturers are taking a serious look into recycling the tires that they sell to mines around the world.”
When he’s not busy working on projects, Mike likes to follow his other passions that range from windsurfing, fishing and time in the back country. He and his wife, Vel Lindquist, (who he met in Grand Prairie when flying on fires) also have a small beach house in Belize. They have two grown children who are involved in their own careers.
Mike says he developed a real desire for this business by having the right people involved and watching the whole thing grow an energy of its own.
“I totally believed that it had to succeed if we just got up every day and made some sort of progress. The way we convinced people to believe in us was by “doing” and not just talking. We grew through getting to understand every part of this business. We made many mistakes and learnt from them.”
“We also realized that if we treated our employees with respect, gave our customers proper service and quality product day in and day out that they would have to support us.”
“Everyone started to believe bit by bit from Western’s partners to our employees, managers, government officials, tire dealers, our manufacturing customers to the board members.”
“Watching it grow was inspiring and it turned into a fun time!”
“It has been a great run and I want to thank everyone (from my soul) that has helped make this possible. It makes it even more special to see the Tire Industry recognize the role that tire recyclers actually play by receiving this award.”