Oodles of recognition for Harbour Air, Comox rep

HARBOUR AIR REPRESENTATIVE Andrew MacMillan earned one award Saturday, while the company he works for received another one last week.

While most of the 15 nominated Comox Valley businesses fell short of receiving honours at the Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards, it was quite a weekend for Andrew MacMillan.

The Harbour Air community relations person in Comox was named Saturday night as the recipient of the George Muir Memorial President's Merit Award during the Comox Valley annual community Awards presentations. The award was presented during a gala event at the Florence Filberg Centre in Courtenay.

Also last week, Harbour Air was named business of the year during the presentation evening for the 12th annual Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards at the Westin Bear Mountain Resort near Victoria.

With more than 50 aircraft, Harbour Air and its affiliate Westcoast Air operate the largest all-seaplane fleet in the world.

Single and twin Otters service regular flights between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. DHC-2 Beavers service the Gulf Islands and Cessna 185s are available for charter.

MacMillan was the face of the company in Comox when it announced last year it was adding a 14-seat, single-engine Otter connecting the Comox Marina and downtown Vancouver. MacMillan explained it was an upgrade over the smaller six-passenger DeHavilland DHC-2 Beaver.

The company was exploring longer-term use of the larger aircraft, the idea being to increase capacity on a year-round basis, MacMillan said at the time.

Later in the year, he was featured in a Vancouver Province article by writer Michael McCarthy, who was impressed and appreciative when MacMillan whisked him on a whirlwind tour of the Comox Valley en route to McCarthy's Campbell river destination.

In full Comox Valley ambassador mode, MacMillan filled McCarthy's head with information about the area and its many visitor-friendly events.

In an e-mail to Comox Business in Action, McCarthy prophetically wrote, "Somebody give Andrew an award. I think he just made the Comox Valley a lot of money.”

Source:   http://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com