C&C Horizon Contracting Ltd.—integrity meets industry expertise
The Vancouver-based construction, pipeline, and land and water management business is the first general contracting company owned by a Musqueam Band member in that Nation’s history. Owner Melanie Coyne who founded the company over seven years ago and director of operations Chris Coyne lead with integrity and expertise to support every project they work on.
Melanie talked about connecting with FortisBC early on.
“FortisBC shows commitment when working with Indigenous businesses,” Melanie said. “The FortisBC team responded to us not just for our industry knowledge, but because of how well we’re able to build relationships. Chris is always genuine and he’s very good at making connections and building trust and confidence.”
Senior project manager, major projects at FortisBC Les Corradine hired the company for the CTSU project in which they helped in building facilities at our stations and other construction work. Les talked about Melanie’s and Chris’ commitment and the strengths they brought to our work together.
“We worked with Melanie and Chris and the C&C Horizon Contracting Ltd. team on some smaller projects to start off and got to know each other through good communications,” Les said. “One of the things that impressed me right away was that they understood the “why” of what was expected of them and saw the big picture. From there, they demonstrated how smart and focused they are as a team who can work within a short time frame when that’s needed.”
Creating a culture of safety together
When it comes to safety, Chris describes himself as being extra attentive and aware. He can’t help but notice things that others may not. When Chris and his crew were in the field for the CTSU project, he always felt encouraged to speak up to help create a safer environment. This attitude is essential to him and to FortisBC.
“No matter how minor it is, the rule we have in place is: if you see something, bring it up,” Chris said. “Even if you feel like you’re repeating yourself, it’s important that everyone feels that their safety concerns are important and taken seriously.”
Helping create safer conditions for everyone is one of the reasons mentoring is so important to Chris and his team. Mentoring helps build confidence in every member of the crew, especially younger crew members. Chris and his team brought this confidence to our project.
“Safety is a culture we create together with our clients,” he said.
What Indigenous participation means
Chris and Melanie value the connection to their community, which leads everything they do. They saw that FortisBC shares their values and is proud to be working alongside other Indigenous-owned businesses on the project. They also recognized there are challenges in accessing opportunities.
“When it came to working with FortisBC, we did our research,” Melanie said. “We looked on their website to find out how they talk about working with Indigenous businesses. Later on, we were involved in helping to make things easier for other businesses like ours to become vendors.”
Indigenous participation involves creating employment opportunities for Indigenous workers. This includes training and mentorship to pass along knowledge and skills to the next generation. This helps younger Indigenous people be successful working in highly regulated industries like ours.
Bringing it home
C&C Horizon Contracting Ltd. is a company that leads with integrity. The company has worked with FortisBC for years, building shared trust and strong relationships. Chris and Melanie offer their experience and advice to other Indigenous-owned businesses building their company profiles while pursuing the goal of becoming a FortisBC vendor.
They both advise that making the effort to build connections, keep learning and just showing up for events can lead to the next step to success. They’ve found that sometimes along the way it will feel like everyone is saying ‘no’, but getting past that is necessary, although it’s never easy.
In their experience, putting in the time to bring it home for people so they understand what they were trying to do has been essential. We’ve shared in the benefits of their experience, confidence and in their attitudes toward teamwork that’s led to great results.
To learn more about how FortisBC works with Indigenous businesses, be sure to visit our Indigenous relationships and Reconciliation page.
Visit our Coastal Transmission Systems Upgrade (CTSU) project to learn more about the work we’ve completed to upgrade our gas lines and keep our infrastructure safe.
