Challenge
How do you weave a personal and business story together?
Following her husband’s devastating plane crash, a 28-year-old Wendy McDonald suddenly found herself alone and thrust into the business world alongside four young children. With little experience in her late husband’s field, she came into possession of a small machine and bearings distributorship in the 1950s, an era when industrial bearings was a man’s world.
The BC Bearing team wanted to get this remarkable life-meets-business story down on record for the strong network of people Wendy built around her over the course of shaping the company, which had metamorphosed into a profitable family business with more than 60 locations worldwide.
But the looming question remained. Where would this story lean more towards: personal or business? For Wendy, we chose to do both.
Solution
A charming collection of stories on family, friendship, and entrepreneurial grit
Wendy McDonald and BC Bearing’s stories are threaded closely together, and they offer us a fascinating window into the history of British Columbia’s economic growth. What more could our humble storytelling team ask for as we branched out from personal memoir work and dove into the intricacies of company history? Not to mention, being a woman-led business ourselves, we were honoured to help craft a story of a resilient female entrepreneur who meant so much to our community.
Many of our corporate clients often find themselves torn between the kind of story they want to write. This is an excellent example of finding a sweet spot in between. What we landed on was a warm and approachable family history book laden with archival photographs and rich stories that merged Wendy’s personal life with the complex journey of BC Bearing.
There were many perspectives to capture, so while Wendy’s story is the throughline in her company’s journey, the goal was to create many layers of content. We did this with pull quotes from almost 30 people, sidebars profiling key figures, and a timeline that traverses every couple of pages.
Result
A proud, personal sendoff in a time when relationships meant everything
We published You Got That Right in 2007. This book was instrumental during BC Bearing’s early relationship building and eventually sealing the deal for its acquisition 2 years later by Genuine Parts Company, a global provider of automotive and industrial parts.
Wendy made sure to personally gift books to people in her network. It was a time when personal touches meant so much, and a reminder of how much power they still hold today in business. To quote Wendy herself, “business was a little different back then, but it was still all about relationships.”
One more cool thing...
An moving obituary by the Vancouver Sun
Wendy was a prominent figure in BC history. She was member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia, and received many awards during her career. We were honoured to help get her inspiring story down on record before she passed away in 2012, 5 years following the release of her book and the acquisition.
As a tribute to her contributions and the mark she left, the Vancouver Sun published a moving obituary, coining Wendy “a leading business woman, philanthropist and community leader who displayed her value of hard work while enchanting everyone she met with her sense of adventure, caring attitude and exuberant love of life.”
Learn more about how much Wendy meant to BC community.
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