The Upper Columbia Pioneer • 11
December 16, 2005
Wende Brash: the woman behind ReMax By Elinor Florence Pioneer Staff Wende Brash loves to work. The petite brunette who owns the local ReMax franchise is a whirlwind of energy who shows no signs of slowing down after three children, three grandchildren and more than three decades as an independent businesswoman. Born and raised in Golden, Wende began dating her future husband Randy Brash in 1973. The two teenagers were both working for the summer at the local IGA store. In the fall they moved to Victoria where Randy studied commerce at the University of Victoria. In June 1975 they moved to Calgary, where son Adam was born. The couple wed on Valentine’s Day 1976 and just three months later launched their business careers with the purchase of an IGA store in Fort St. John. Wende and Randy were just 20 years old. In 1978, daughter Jaime was born. With a flourishing business and two small children, the Brashes took on a new challenge: they purchased a convenience store. “This is what my life was like back then,” Wende recalls. “I would open the convenience store at 6 a.m. and work until 9 a.m., when I would go over to IGA. Randy would already have opened up there. I would work at IGA from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and then go back to the other store and stay there until it closed at 1 a.m.” Often the kids came along to help. “Adam knew how to face up the store before he could even read,” Wende laughs. “Facing up” means turning all the cans and jars on the shelves so that the labels face the customer. In 1984, they heard about a grocery store for sale in Invermere. “Randy came down first and I called him and asked: ‘What’s it like there?’” Wende remembers. “He said: ‘It’s like dying and going to heaven.’” The Brash family bought the Super Valu store, located where the Saan store is now situated, along with the entire building. They transformed it into an IGA store and started back to work. Combining work and family life was especially challenging when Jaime was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of six. The Brashes hired a live-in nanny to help run the household, and she stayed with them for the next 12 years. Four years after moving to Invermere, the Brashes had a delightful surprise when they found they were to become parents once again. Daughter Jenna, ten years younger than her sister, was born in 1988. By this time Adam was a teenager who excelled at hockey. His parents sent him to Notre Dame school in Willcox, Saskatchewan, which had a reputation for grooming hockey players.
Wende Brash, whose name is well-known throughout the valley, stands in front of her Invermere home. Later Jaime decided she wanted to go to private school as well, so she departed for Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island. Wende had her third toddler on her hip when she finally decided to step back from the grocery business. “Randy and I had worked together since we were 17,” she said. “So I thought: ‘Why not try something new?’” Since Wende was a Size 2, she couldn’t find any clothing small enough to fit her in Invermere. In 1991 she opened a women’s clothing store called Someplace Else, on the lower level beneath Saan. In 1994 she bought Thredz and amalgamated the two clothing stores into one. When the Brashes purchased a house, an everambitious Wende took one look at the process and thought: “I can do this.” In 1990 she earned her realtor’s licence and went to work for Windermere Realty. The next year she moved over to ReMax to work for then-owner Chuck Blanshard. “In 1994 Chuck said to me: ‘Wende, either buy this place or I’m selling it to an Albertan.’ So I bought it.” In the past 12 years under Wende’s ownership, ReMax has grown to include four offices - two in Invermere, including the spot once occupied by her clothing store beneath Saan - one in Radium, and one located at Panorama Mountain Village. She now has
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14 realtors working under the ReMax banner. Future plans for the busy realtor include opening a ReMax office in Fairmont. “Then I’ll have the valley covered,” she declares. Meanwhile, son Adam is now an engineer in Fort St. John, married with three daughters of his own. Jaime, who has a geography degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, has experienced health problems stemming from her diabetes and lives in Edmonton so she can be close to University Hospital. And Jenna followed her sister to Shawnigan Lake, where she is currently completing her final year of high school. Now 49, Wende says she is one of those fortunate people who need only a few hours of sleep. She has never relinquished her gruelling daily schedule, although she and Randy now try to take more holidays together, often getting away to Mexico or Arizona in the winter. Although Wende has seen her share of milliondollar homes over the years, the Brashes live in a modest two-storey house on 13th Avenue in Invermere. Wende says she loves the convenience of living close to the office and the big back yard. Surprisingly, she still finds time to have hobbies camping in the summer, and scrapbooking in the winter. She is also a huge hockey fan who adores Wayne Gretzky and never misses watching the Vancouver Canucks. But work is still her passion. “The busier I am, the more I like it,” she says.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
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