After 25 years in business as the owner of Norbert Salvage in Bridesville, Bertha S. Williams is planning on retiring in the coming months. Williams and her late husband Norman founded the business back in the days before recycling programs weren’t overly popular in most Canadian households. Williams is shown here with employee Charlie Houle. (Keith Lacey photo)
Bertha S. Williams may be small in stature and well past the retirement age of most Canadians, but she remains a real dynamo when it comes to running her business and her passion for “recycling almost anything” and protecting the environment.
As the proud owner of Norbert Salvage, the small recycling centre and bottle depot business located 35 kilometres east of Osoyoos in Bridesville, Williams has worked extremely hard to make her small business a success for a quarter century.
Norbert Salvage officially celebrated 25 years in business on September 1.
“If you would have asked me if I thought this place would still be around 25 years after we started, I would have never thought that would be possible,” she said. “But me and (late husband) Norman loved what we were doing and never really thought about doing anything else.”
To show just how incredible a work ethic Williams still possesses, she helped sort more than 10,000 bottles in one weekend during a recent fundraising effort by the minor hockey association in nearby Midway.
“When you’re in the salvage business, you have to be willing to work hard, get your hands dirty and be committed,” said Williams, with a sly smile while enjoying a cigarette. “There are very small profit margins in a business like this and that means you have to rely on volume and more volume and that means getting out there and recycling as many commodities as you possibly can.”
Norbert Salvage has regular customers in Oliver and Osoyoos, but more than 90 per cent of her customers are located near Bridesville in communities like Midway, Greenwood, Rock Creek, Westbridge and Beaverdell.
After losing her husband just over one year ago, Williams has decided she will finally be easing into retirement in the next few months and plans to sell the business.
“I’ve worked hard for a very long time and I’m actually really looking forward to retirement,” she said. “I’m hoping to hand over the business and retire before Christmas.
“I like to be around people and it’s very quiet here in Bridesville, so the plan is to move to Oliver, where I have some really good friends, and get involved in a lot of volunteer and community work. I’m a member of the Oliver Legion and I’m close to the great hospital they have there. I’m finally ready to step back.”
Bertha and Norman were married for almost 29 years.
She was raised on a farm in smalltown Saskatchewan. Her husband was from Duncan on Vancouver Island.
They met while she was working for a community organization in Quesnel, B.C.
She was put in charge of selling a building run by a women’s institute and she contacted Century 21 Real Estate, where Norman worked.
When she walked past his office in Quesnel one day, Norman told a co-worker that “I’m going to marry that girl one day,” she said smiling.
He asked her out on a date soon thereafter “and the rest is history,” said Bertha.
Her husband had spent a lot of time in the South Okanagan and they decided they wanted to start a business together.
He also had a passion for the salvage business so they decided to start up Norbert Salvage in Bridesville.
“I loved the peace and quiet of this little village … and my husband was always doing salvage jobs when he wasn’t selling real estate,” she said. “We fought for over three years before we finally decided he would stop selling houses and we would open this salvage business.”
Back when Norbert Salvage first opened, most of the business involved collecting pop and beer bottles and cans.
It has been amazing to see the progress in society when it comes to recycling and keeping millions of tons of materials that used to go directly to landfill sites diverted, she said.
Items her business now recycles include electronics, computers, monitors, printers, speakers, televisions, newsprint and books, mixed paper and boxboard, household hazardous waste, wet and dry cell batteries, small metals and small appliances.
“We wanted to run a business where we could make a decent living, but also where we could make a difference,” she said. “My husband was a strong environmentalist and I’ve certainly become one.
“In 25 years, we’ve gone from a society where so very few people recycled anything to one where most people try and recycle as much as they possibly can. It has been amazing to see.”
Even though she will be easing into retirement over the next couple of months, Williams plans on continuing to work hard until the very last day on the job.
“There’s no such thing as not being busy in this line of work,” she said. “It’s always busy and there’s always something to do and that’s exactly how I like it. The time passes by really quickly when you’re busy.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
Bertha S. Williams has seen a lot of changes in the recycling business since she and her late husband Norman started Norbert Salvage 25 years ago in Bridesville. (Keith Lacey photo)
