BID Group founder Brian Fehr was named to the Order of British Columbia during a ceremony Thursday at Government House in Victoria.
He was be among 14 people who received the province's highest honour. It was presented in recognition of his achievements as both a businessman and a community supporter.
Although having only a Grade 12 education, he built BID Group into a billion-dollar concern that provides innovative technical systems and construction services for wood products industries in B.C., across Canada and into the United States.
The companies employ 400 people in B.C. and 1,400 more throughout North America. A focus on innovation has played a role in that sucess.
Through its subsidiary, DelTech, the BID Group has developed biomass energy systems that lower energy costs and greenhouse emissions, using wood waste that was formerly burned by the forest industry.
And following the Babine and Lakeland sawmill explosions, Fehr developed a dust-mitigation system that has been installed in all 15 Canfor sawmills.
"He foresaw the potential of artificial intelligence and the potential for machinery to make decisions that would improve productivity," according to a biography provided by the Honours and Awards Secretariat. "His 'profiling' technology allows a log to be processed into lumber with a single pass, cutting labour costs.
"Auto grading, which uses computers to optimize the value of each piece of lumber by making decisions at a much higher production rate than manually grading lumber, has revolutionized the industry through minimizing loss in process, improvements in the value of finished products and cost reduction.
"His predictive maintenance processes for sawmills means equipment can be fixed before a breakdown occurs, increasing worker safety and improving efficiency."
Fehr has also served on the boards of the B.C. Association for Crane Safety and the B.C. Safety Authority (now Technical Safety BC).
