The phone rings at 6:25 a.m.

“I hope you’re having a great day!” Tor Wilson’s voice booms on the voice mail.

Even badgers are still snoozing, but the cheery CEO of Badger Income Fund sounds like he’s been up for hours as he hurriedly provides information.

That’s how Wilson, a 45-year-old from Digby, N.S., stays ahead of the game in running the thriving excavation company that has flourished and restructured into an income trust since he assumed the reins four years ago.

Shannon Oatway photo, Business Edge
Badger Income Fund CEO Tor Wilson says restructuring the company made good business sense.

Maybe Mom was right about the early bird getting the worm.

1. Did you have a mentor or role model as a youngster?

“No, not really. I was just always driven, very aggressive and wanted to win. I played a lot of sports like football, rugby and skiing.”

2. Why did you initially choose a career in forestry?

“When I was in high school, I just didn’t want to be in an office, honest to God. I loved trees, so I said, ‘I’m going to become a forester.’ My first job was in northern Ontario for a forest products company called EB Eddy Forest Products. I was a production supervisor, first planting trees and then looking after logging crews. I did that for four years and just loved it. It was a great experience, harvesting trees and dealing with unions and men and equipment.”

3. How did your role change when you moved to forestry equipment manufacturer Timberjack in 1986?

“When I went to Timberjack, it was more a marketing role – promoting their equipment, providing information for it and working at developing new equipment. Then I was approached by a competitor (industrial equipment manufacturer Blount International) when I was working at Timberjack, and went to work for them at a district sales job. When I moved to Minnesota, my territory was everything outside of North America, looking after dealers and dealer development around the world. Then, in 1996, Timberjack asked me to come back and I moved back to Canada and did a lot of international work for them.”

4. When John Deere acquired Timberjack in 2000, did you have an opportunity to remain with the company?

“Deere offered me a great job to stay and they’re a wonderful company. I wasn’t looking for a job and I couldn’t see myself leaving the equipment business, but then a headhunter from Badger Daylighting called me.”

5. So what sold you on making the move to Badger?

“First of all, I liked the size of the company and the opportunity to become a president. I’d done all the other functions. Then, I went to watch a Badger (excavation) truck work and as I watched, I was really intrigued. It was a young company that had issues and I thought I could add value.”

6. What was your first plan of action when you arrived at Badger in 2000?

“The first thing I did was interview as many people as I could. I asked them about themselves, asked them about the business, asked them about what they did, what issues they saw and what they thought of the company. I really tried to understand what Badger was all about. Then, I got into the business and determined what I thought we needed to do to be successful and where we should go in the future. There were some financial issues, some people issues, and Badger was in a number of different businesses at that time, some of which competed with each other. We decided to focus on the daylighting (excavation) business. I thought it would take us two years to get the company to where we wanted it, but it actually took three years.”

7. What was the key to getting the company on track last year?

“The real key was just getting better fleet utilization. We moved a number of trucks (used for excavation) from the U.S. that weren’t heavily utilized, brought them to Canada and put them to use. That was the biggest reason for the growth last year. Another big difference is that the U.S. business, instead of being a drag on the company, is starting to contribute to the company. Now, instead of having the Canadian business carrying everything, we’ve got a growing U.S. business. The majority of our business is still in Canada and that’s still our core business. There should be growth in Canada and the U.S.”

8. Have you changed the direction of the company to suit the income trust model?

“There will be no change at all. The philosophy has always been to try to improve your business every day. If you have a good business and you’re growing, people will recognize that after a while, whether you’re a trust or a corporation. Obviously, there’s another dimension to manage now that we’re a trust but it has zero effect on our operations.”

9. How did you arrive at the decision to restructure into a trust?

“We looked at the trust model about a year to 14 months before we converted. Both myself and Greg Kelly, our CFO, were really against it. What really changed our minds was that our debt was getting to such a low level and we were going to have that excess cash. We’ve been building new trucks out of our cash flow for some years now. We were in a position where we had very little long-term debt, except for the mortgage on our building in Red Deer, and we had excess cash. When we looked at the structure of being a public company or being an income trust, it just seemed to make sense to pass off those distributions (to unitholders) before tax than after tax. We also wanted to create some liquidity for our shareholders, which happened. It just seemed to make business sense to us.”

10. With the majority of your revenue derived from the oilpatch, how would your company weather a slump in the oil and gas industry?

“Well, that’s a really good question. We do a lot of maintenance work in plants as well as working with pipeline contractors, so there’s a good percentage of our work that goes on whether the price of oil is high or low. We’d definitely be affected (by lower oil prices), we’d definitely be slower, but it wouldn’t be a wipeout for us. The other thing is that our trucks are on wheels. So if we really find the oilpatch slow, we do have the opportunity of opening up some other markets. We can do anything where a hole needs to be dug.”

11. What’s your vision for Badger?

“Our vision is to continue to grow in Canada and strengthen our leadership position here. In the U.S., we want to become a national player. We are strong in certain parts of the U.S. but I’d like to be stronger nationwide in the U.S. and have an equally good business there as we have in Canada.”

12. What makes an effective business leader?

“I think the key thing is to make sure that the business model works. You’ve got to make sure you have some kind of core competency that will allow you to be successful. The second thing is to have some key people and be able give them the direction and the resources to go do the job.”

13. Is winning everything to you?

“Winning is extremely important. I just believe in giving everything you’ve got. It’s better to win than to fail.”

14. Have you failed in business?

“Nope. And I don’t intend to have any failures. I’ve had a lot of challenges in my life as far as business goes and I’ve always done well. It was not at the expense of others. It was by working hard and figuring things out and never giving up.”

15. What’s the most important trait you look for in employees?

“It’s really an attitude, having accountability. Of course, they’ve got to have the basic skills but it’s attitude and having a successful past. I really want people who have been successful in the past because I believe it will continue on. I also want them to have an attitude to roll up their sleeves and contribute.”

16. What’s the most important business lesson you’ve learned?

“The importance of having good people around you. Before I took this job, I met with a bunch of the people and if I didn’t think it was a core group of good people who knew the business, I wouldn’t have come out here.”

17. How long do you wish to remain as CEO of Badger?

“As long as it’s exciting and it’s challenging. If it comes to a point where I think I’m just a rubber-stamp guy and there’s not things to do every day that are exciting, then I’ve added my value and it’s time for someone else to put their stamp on it.”

18. What’s your most important goal beyond business?

“It’s to make sure my (two) kids have enough background and have enough toughness to succeed in what they want to do when they get out of school. I want to make sure they’re well grounded in education and other aspects of life, and that they’ve got a strong enough will to survive and succeed.”

19. What did your parents teach you about life?

“I think the biggest thing was to be true to yourself, work hard and do what you want to do.”

20. Is there one thing you’d change if you could start your career over again?

“I wouldn’t change a thing. I have zero regrets. Life couldn’t be any better.”

IN PROFILE: Tor Wilson
* Title: President/CEO, Badger Income Fund.
* Born/raised/age: Digby, N.S.; Digby, Halifax, Ottawa; 45.
* Education: University of New Brunswick, bachelor of science (forestry); Laurentian University (Sudbury, Ont.), MBA.
* Family: Wife Jan, two children.
* Career: Wilson has been CEO of Badger since 2000. Prior to that, he was senior vice-president and chief operating officer of international equipment manufacturer Timberjack before it was acquired by John Deere. He has also worked for EB Eddy, another company involved in the forestry industry, and Blount International.
* Passions: Running, cycling.

THE COMPANY: Badger Income Fund
* Brass: Tor Wilson, president/CEO; Greg Kelly, senior vice-president/chief operating officer.
* Profile: Badger, founded in 1992, specializes in non-destructive excavation services for petroleum and utilities contractors, and also designs and manufactures the truck- mounted pressurized water and vacuum units used to safely expose utility cables and pipelines. The company operates through agents in Canada and franchises in the U.S.
* Trustworthy: Badger completed its conversion into an income trust in April and currently pays a monthly distribution to unitholders of 6.7 cents per unit.
* Market: Canada and the U.S. (approximately 80 per cent of Badger’s revenue is in Canada).
* Website: www.badgerinc.com
* Headquarters: 2820, 715 5th Ave. S.W., Calgary, T2P 2X6.
* Phone/Fax: 403-264-8500/228-9773.
* Western Canada Regional Office: 6740 6th Ave., Red Deer, T4P 1A5 (800-465-4273).