Mike Vancapelle

I own Blue Water Concepts here in town and lead our team of outstanding humans. We are a design-build construction company focused on delivering an exceptional product to our clients as well as an exceptional experience. We focus on new homes, major renovations, remote island builds and commercial projects. We currently employ 37 full time staff, all of which live locally to Squamish or the Sea to Sky. We have been a certified Living Wage Employer for 3 years now which is something I (we) am (are) quite proud of and feel is an important standard to hold. This past year I brought the idea to our team of creating a post secondary scholarship for Squamish based students looking to pursue a career in the trades or architecture and design field. Our team was fully on board and we were proud to award this to a local graduating student this past spring. This will now be an annual scholarship we offer.

I feel as though Blue Water Concepts has done a good job making it a priority to ensure we do what we can to give back or be involved in the community as much as possible, which is also something I feel is important personally. As a father of 3 kids under 5, my time is a bit limited these days but I do still (actively) sit on two boards here in town (down from 3 last year). I have been on the board of Squamish Housing Society from its inception, which has been a super valuable experience seeing firsthand the challenges of bringing affordable housing to Squamish but also rewarding seeing the results of the work our incredible ED (Sarah Ellis) and team have achieved in a short time. I also sit on the Chamber of Commerce board, which is something important to me given the amount of incredible small, medium, and large businesses in Squamish that employ and have an impact on so many residents.

A project that I am and our team were really proud of this past year was designing and building Squamish Search and Rescue's new home base. Getting to play such a big part in a project so important to our community and seeing my team deliver this and be so proud of it was truly rewarding. I have grown Blue Water from an F-150 packed with tools and hiring some friends to help me when needed to going into our 10th year (this January) and employing a team of individuals that I am incredibly proud of working with everyday. I initially got into construction to build and renovate homes, but I never fully appreciated how important it would become to me to provide a positive workplace and meaningful work to our growing team.

I am currently finishing the purchase of another local company here in town which I feel will allow us to employ more local residents as well as provide a much-needed service to Squamish.

Thank you.