By Rajitha Sivakumaran
W
hen Bob Deeks completed his studies at the Uni-
versity of Western Ontario in economics and ac-
counting, could he have predicted that one day he
would be the owner of an award-winning general contracting
company on the other side of the country? Many people lose
job security during a recession, but for Deeks, it initiated his
solo plunge into entrepreneurship.
After switching to a career in carpentry in the late 1980s,
Deeks fell into the snares of the economic slowdown of
the early 1990s. In fact, his employer simply stopped
responding to clients and there were very few oppor-
tunities to work for someone else. Somehow a hotel
chain that Deeks had previously worked for had got-
ten a hold of his number and contacted him, des-
perate for maintenance work. That started a rela-
tionship that would occupy Deeks for two years
to come. “After that there was no looking back,”
he said, and 1993, he founded the Whistler-
based RDC Fine Homes, a high-end custom
construction and renovations company.
MAY 2017
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