By ANDREW WAREING
Learn to adapt quickly to change. This is one motto that Jean Paul Aube lives by.
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Jean Paul Aube |
Aube, co-owner of the Days Inn in Timmins, has been around long enough to know that, in order to survive, one has to be willing to change with the environment.
The hospitality business is a tough one to be in, especially in the North, he says.
"You have to learn to adapt quickly to change and to hire the right people to do the job," he says.
Aube has been in the hospitality business for the past 23 years and currently has two McDonald's location in Timmins and is a co-owner of the Days Inn in Timmins and Quality Inn in Sudbury.
It was the mid-1970s and a mining boom was underway in Timmins when Aube introduced the first disco to the city, and a small hotel. He later introduced a higher-end restaurant in Timmins. Over the years, conditions changed and he had to adapt, switching from a strategy of having his own businesses under their own names to moving into a franchise mode.
Aube is former chair of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and present board member for Northern Telephone.
"You also have to adapt to the harsh reality of doing business in Northern Ontario where we are losing a lot of our youth. It presents a lot of challenges in taking care of our business. For people like me who want to have an influence on our future, that means being very much involved in community economic development to turn this around."
