Life Goes on at Stellar Descents…by Jay Martin

Another season is coming up quick for our little TRU legacy business, Stellar Descents Backcountry Adventures. I am proud to be an owner of a company that was originally founded by now Program Director, Sharman Learie and Adventure Studies grad, Adam Devita. The company was founded in 2004 and has since been passed down the ranks of further TRU alumni. My business partner, and fellow Adventure Program Graduate, Danny Cooke and I, are literally counting the days until life consists of morning coffee on the Stellar deck, the excited chatter of arriving rafters, the jokes, the story telling, and of course, the white water.

I became part owner of Stellar Descents in 2010, one year after I had graduated from the Adventure Program, and after two years of being a river guide. I was a keen kayaker, looking for a way to maintain the river guide lifestyle, while gaining an influential foothold at the place I worked. I was offered partnership at Stellar Descents, and the opportunity was a perfect fit.

Stellar offered me the perfect crash course in how much I did not know about business. However, there could have been no better environment to hit the ground… stumbling. It was a small investment; therefore low risk, a small operation; so easy to analyze, debate and adjust any policies, and if after only four months, you wanted to strangle your business partner? It was okay, because the season was over, and you could take an eight-month break. Best friends again come spring.

Stellar Descents has since become a home away from home. We are a small company, chugging along and making small improvements every year. It has become my “Zen Company” so to speak. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Tourism Management, I have begun working for an aggressive event planning company in Vancouver. I have my own office, I am given relative freedom in regards to decision making in my department, decent compensation and regular opportunities to move upward. Life is good, and I enjoy my work. But the pace of life reflects the pace of business. And in this environment, one is rewarded for an aggressive and competitive nature. No matter what project, strategy or idea I am working on, my end goal always remains the same, to increase the profit margin. I thoroughly enjoy this challenge.

However, often I sit back and think about my summers up at Stellar Descents. We may never be a very profitable company. We are a small player, competing in a tough market during hard economic times. We have aging assets and limited cash flow. We are the inevitable underdog. This season, we will probably not make enough revenue to drastically change our marketing campaign. We will probably not make enough money to upgrade our company vehicles. But we will make enough to go rafting. We will make enough to put smiles on peoples faces, laugh with our friends, live on the river and open up next season to do it all again. With a limited budget for growth and expansion, we are heavily invested in one thing: Lifestyle.

This summer, when we open the doors for business, there will not be many certainties. The weather could be terrible. The water could be low. Travel may increase, but it probably will not. A few things however, are certain. I will definitely pump rafts. I will definitely tell jokes. And I will definitely go kayaking. If I am the first to the base in the morning, I will make the coffee. And sitting in front of the Stellar Shack on a quiet morning, with the Fraser River behind me and snow-capped Mount Goslin in front, that coffee will be fantastic.

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~ by TRUadventureproject on January 10, 2012.