WESTMAN PROGRESSIVE
CREATIVE CLEANING SOLUTIONS Brandon business specializes in sanitation and safety essentials BY JIM BENDER
A s co-owner of Brandon’s leading dealer in sanitation supplies and equipment, Spencer Day can tell you precisely how many non-medical face masks the company sold before 2020. “Zero,” says Day, who co-founded Westman Progressive with his brother Riley Day (a former Brandon Wheat King). This year, mask sales number in the tens of thousands, and the demand for other sanitation and safety products is through the roof.
“We’re in our 11th year and we’ve never seen growth like we’ve had the last six months,” says Day, 33. “We added five permanent positions for sanitation over that time.” That brings the payroll to a total of 33 full-time employees. During the summer, when the Westman area went into Code Orange, about 20 part-timers were also employed on the assembly line to help keep up with demand. A one-stop shop, Progressive Westman provides all the essentials, from
hand soap and dispensers to gloves, microfibre cloths, industrial cleaning equipment and more. The company also has divisions to sell mats and uniforms, as well as fire extinguishers and other safety products. It serves about 500 clients, including 48 Prairie Mountain Health locations and both the federal and provincial governments. “We’ve got a fleet of seven vans that take our products all over Westman, up to the Saskatchewan and U.S. borders, and to
38
WINTER 2020
Powered by FlippingBook