Blair McFadyen was broke.
He was living paycheque to paycheque, working as a mechanic as well as a bar manager at what was then called the New Grand Hotel when the hotel’s owner Danny Rickaby suggested in 2002 that McFadyen go into business for himself.
McFadyen scoffed. “I had nothing,” he says now. “I had absolutely squat. I had no credit, no nothing.”
But Rickaby persisted. Glacier Honda, which was in the spot currently occupied by the liquor store next to the since renamed Adventure Hotel on Vernon Street, was relocating to Castlegar. Rickaby owned the land and wanted to put in a liquor store, but instead put a pin in those plans so McFadyen could open his own garage.
McFadyen still isn’t sure how Rickaby got the idea, or why he decided to back one his employees. “Me and him always had a pretty good relationship together. I don’t know why he did it for me, but he basically sat me down for days in a row and told me what I should do and what I shouldn’t do.”
His pitch to McFadyen was this: McFadyen would get the building for a year, and in return all he’d pay were utilities. Rickaby also bought Glacier’s equipment, helped McFadyen get a business account, lent him his bookkeeper, and allowed his customers to use the hotel’s debit machine. Rickaby also told McFadyen to pay him back when he could, no pressure.
He ended up paying Rickaby back everything within six months.
“My business took off,” said McFadyen, now the owner of Midtown Motors that later relocated to McDonald Drive. “In six months I was doing numbers even he couldn’t believe. And I was working by myself, I was a one-man show. I was answering the phone, I was ordering my own parts, I was fixing cars, I was working 12, 14 hour days. And he was like, ‘That’s what it takes to run a business, man. Now you know.’”
Rickaby passed away in January, but his family hope to keep helping others in the same way Rickaby once did for McFadyen.
A memorial fund called the Downtown Dan’s Business Bursary has been set up to give financial assistance to local entrepreneurs. Rickaby’s son Chase, who came up with the idea along with Adventure Hotel manager Rob Little, said his father could have used the bursary himself when he opened his first business, a pizza restaurant in Lethbridge, Alta.
“He had a hard time getting going so we thought well why don’t we maybe try to do something to get some money together and help someone get going?” said Chase. “He loved seeing cool, creative ideas and that’s how I think the business world fed him and kept him excited to keep moving forward.”
Chase is aiming to raise at least $50,000 by August 2018. About $4,500 was added to the current total of $12,000 at a celebration of life for Rickaby held Saturday.
Chase plans to consult with the Osprey Foundation about how to distribute the money, which he added could also be used as an education fund for entrepreneurs.
McFadyen is delighted the fund is being created, which he said perfectly fits the memory of Rickaby.
“I have a huge, successful business now and there’s only one person who I owe that to and that’s him.”