The recent grand opening of the new Lampman offices of the Calgary-based Land Solutions shows the company is committed to continuing its involvement in the region, and to the community of Lampman itself.
The Lampman location of the business focuses on land acquisitions and related areas of negotiations, like surface or mineral rights.
"Right now, our Lampman office represents about 20 percent of our total business in the land acquisitions and related areas," said Land Solutions President Chad Hughs. "It is pretty considerable, considering the size of the office and the area of coverage."
While growth for the location over the past two years has been relatively slow, it has continued to grow nonetheless.
"The Lampman office hasn't seen as much growth over the past couple years as previous," explained Shawn Howard, the Senior Land Manager for Land Solutions' Calgary office. "But the first few years we were here, the business was doubling, than doubling again, year-over-year."
On June 7th, Land Solutions held a public brunch and ribbon cutting for their new Lampman location.
Located on Main St., the building was the first new business structure constructed on the thoroughfare in 20 years, according to some accounts.
"We're very glad to have Land Solutions here with our business community," said Krista Duttenhoffer of the Lampman Business Association. "They are our 44th member in our association, and their new building has really made an impact in our commercial district."
"The new building has about 2,200 square feet of space on each of the two floors," said Randy Fleck, the Manager of the Lampman location. "We're just on the one floor right now, and we're renting out the second floor, but if things continue to grow, well, we'll have the space available if things get too snug."
Land Solutions had opened shop in Lampman originally in a one-bedroom apartment, which was outgrown within two years.
In September of 2008, Land Solutions had acquired a former church to relocate into, which suited the needs of the business until recently, until the move into the new building.
"The old church had something like 1,600 square feet of space," Fleck said. "It was great for a while, but eventually, we just filled it up."
When discussing business with Fleck, he speaks eloquently about his company's client businesses, as well as the land holders who he and his staff often act as intermediaries with during lease and rights negotiations.
"We definitely have carved ourselves a place in the local area," Fleck said. "We're established enough now that we'll get landowners coming to us now saying that they have so-and-so mineral rights, and would like to find a company that might be interested in coming onto their land and working with them."
"The staff has a lot to do with our success too," Fleck continued. "Our business is a lot about relationships and being able to deal with different people on their terms, and we definitely have the people who are able to do that."
"I think the goal for us moving into the future is diversifying our business more," Fleck said. "The oil and gas business has been good to us, and we will continue to see a lot of business from that sector, but the oil and gas markets can swing a lot."
"We're looking forward to expanding into some new areas as well," Fleck said. "Wind farms, potash, and geo-thermal which is a new market that is growing right now, are all potential areas where we can help our clients with their businesses."
Fleck added that Land Solutions had already been involved in a wind farm project in Manitoba.
The grand opening event, which was moved indoors due to poor weather, drew around 50 members from the community, and guest speakers included Saskatchewan Speaker of the House Dan D'Autremont, Moosomin MLA Don Toth, as well as representatives from Lampman and the surrounding Rural Municipalities.
