Bethel Windows and Doors was honoured this year as best business at the Coaldale and District Chamber of Commerce annual awards night and the business is also celebrating its 50th anniversary.
The business began in Calgary in 1960.
“The company in Coaldale started in ’76,” says owner Gerald Van Seters.
He says it took him a while to get into the business.
“I worked with inter-continental truck body from ’75 till about ’95 or 94,” he says. “That’s when I came here. My father-in-law was running the business at that time and owned the business.”
Van Seters says when his father-in-law passed away the business came into the hands of the family.
“After ’94… it would turn into a family business with my wife and her four siblings,” says Van Seters.
For the next 15 years it would be a big family business, up until last year.
“Last June, we bought out the rest of the family.”
He and his wife now own the full business. Van Seters says a lot has changed since it first moved to Coaldale.
“When the business was here it had about… 10 employees in ’76.”
Now he says they get up to 50 when they are busy. The size of the company has also changed since ’76 from “about 10,000 square feet” to “about 80,000 square feet.”
Van Seters says that local businesses, like his own, are helpful to the local economy.
“Local employment is still the best thing for economic activity for Coaldale,” he says, adding that the more products that are manufactured in Coaldale and sent to other places in Southern Alberta and across the country, the more money it will bring back into the town.
Bethel supplies many products and services.
“Obviously, windows and doors,” he says.
He adds that Bethel supplies material to local contractors as well as supplying some products throughout Western Canada. They also do renovations and sell manufactured housing.
“We do that in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.”
Bethel also managed to grow in a time when most businesses were cutting down.
“Certainly 2009 isn’t the best year, but we expanded to double our square footage in 2009.”
Van Seters says they do have some new products coming out.
“We have a fully-stainable fiberglass and vinyl system and we’re also going into stainable garage door systems,” he says.
“It’s a product that hasn’t been out there. Fiberglass doors have been in the industry for 15 years and we’ve been able to stain those but there has never been a door frame for it. So our systems are under patent pending and that patent pending would be worldwide. What that does for Coaldale over time should be huge.”
Van Seters adds that it was an honour to win Best Business in Coaldale and that he wants to thank the community who has supported the business.