Tlicho Investment Corporation CEO Paul Gruner is forecasting a bright future for the organization after his latest meeting with the five Tlicho chiefs.
"I left that room feeling confident that we're going in the right direction," he said the week after the late-August meeting. "I think it's going well."
Gruner joined the Tlicho Investment Corporation (TIC) as chief executive officer late last year. He has spent much of his first year with the corporation facilitating what he calls "level-setting."
"We put a lot of time and energy into systems, processes and realigning on the financial side," he said. "It's like building a house. The stronger the foundation, the taller you can grow.
"We're using our time and resources right now around staffing, around development, making sure that we've got a good budgeting processes, bringing in things like risk analysis that didn't really exist before. Those are the sorts of tools that, as you grow up SA国际影视传媒� picking the right partners, getting into the right opportunities SA国际影视传媒� you've got more of those tools to do the appropriate due diligence and give yourself a much better chance of success. That's what I mean by level-setting: making sure that we've got those foundational pieces."
Having spent much of the year focused on level-setting, Gruner admits there aren't any "major projects" left that will be completed this year.
However, TIC, which employs 232 Tlicho citizens, has made some important headway under his leadership. One example is the recent grand opening of a new cultural centre in Behchoko.
"We've closed that [project] out, which is amazing," he said. "There's been a whole bunch of various projects that were sort of at that 95 per cent [completed] when I got here, and those have all been closed out, which is great."
"[This year] it's really been about making sure that the work we had underway has gotten cleaned up and looking at opportunities for improvement, like building the winter ice roads out to the communities. There's been a lot of work put into that this summer to get that into a better place. But really it's just about level-setting the organization and building that foundation for a successful 10 years."
Gruner is specifically focused on the next decade for TIC, and shared his "10-year road map" with the chiefs when he met with them in late August. That's due in part to the fact that TIC is working on a 10-year infrastructure plan with the Tlicho Government, but also because the territory's diamond mines are expected to begin closing within the next decade.
Gruner wants to ensure the corporation is braced for that inevitability.
"Obviously, TIC is going to be around longer than [10 years], but you've got to use the appropriate time line," he said. "You've got roughly 10 years of ongoing operations at the diamond mines. I think it'll extend beyond that, but it's reasonable. You've got Diavik with two years [of operations] and two years for cleanup SA国际影视传媒� that's four. You've got De Beers going to about 2031. Ekati is a bit of that wildcard, but 10 years is reasonable there. Then you've got Giant mine, which is going to go out to about 2037, 2038 SA国际影视传媒� roughly 10 years. I think 10 years is a nice window that you can start working back from."
What role TIC plays in the remediation of those mines is yet to be determined, and it's also too early to reveal what projects TIC has in the pipeline for 2025, Gruner said.
"There's a lot of things that we're working on where we have to sort of wait for them to get direction from Tlicho," he said. "In a month or two, I'll have a better line of sight [for next year].
However, the CEO pledged that TIC will focus on creating "meaningful employment for community members, and training development and apprenticeships."
It remains to be seen what the future holds for TIC, but Gruner is optimistic the organization will be able to adapt to the closure of the diamond mines, and continue to provide opportunities for its members.
"We've got some challenges coming up in the NWT, but I know that Tlicho can still have a successful future here, even though it can be a little bit bumpy with mine closures," he said.
