five. His parents, Jim and Heather O’Connor, bought into Pike Mountain Ranch, located between Merritt and Princeton, in 1986, moving here when Justin was five years old. Originally, they ran cattle and lived on Pike Mountain across the highway, but sold that land in the late 1990s. They moved across the road, and started 7 Half Diamond Ranch where they now lease out the grass land for cattle and run the ranch as a guest and event destination. Had his parents not moved to BC, Justin would have been the fourth generation rancher on the family ranch in Sceptre, Saskatchewan. The O’Connors still have family there and, in fact, Justin is preparing to leave the following morning for a Thanksgiving visit to Saskatchewan. “We’re a very close family,” he says. After attending elementary school in Princeton and high school in Merritt, Justin obtained a business degree from Okanagan University College in Kelowna. He lived for a short time in Vancouver, but nothing, he says, compares to life in the Okanagan. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather live,” he notes, adding that easy access to the ranch complements living in downtown Kelowna — where he can walk everywhere, easily meet people and be close to everything the city has to offer. “When I’m driving out here, the phone’s ringing in the truck and I’m dealing with stuff all the way out here. But about half an hour after I’m out of my truck, I feel like I can take a deep breath.”
He pauses and says, “Listen to how quiet it is — you can hear the fisherman paddling.” Growing up on the ranch “taught me how to work hard,” he adds. “As any rancher knows, you work all the time … I take what I learned here and apply that work ethic to business.” And life has taught him “the harder you work, the luckier you get” — a good motto to have when he acquired Okanagan HOME in 2011. A financial planner for RBC Dominion Securities in Vancouver and Kamloops at the time, Justin recalls, “I wanted to work in Kelowna and be in business for myself. Okanagan HOME was for sale and I thought it would be a fun way to meet people in the community.” It also opened the doors for Justin to meet members of the Okanagan-based Canadian Home Builders’ Association — of which he is now president — and feature their projects in the magazine. His favourite part of running Okanagan HOME, he says, was being “able to add value to my community and promote all the great events that take place in the Okanagan Valley. There are so many great reasons to live in Kelowna and it was fun to showcase the people who make our community amazing.” Acquiring Okanagan HOME also got Justin involved in real estate marketing and introduced him to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. “I was impressed with the Sotheby’s brand, and their global marketing connections as a luxury real estate firm. This made
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