Professional

From a young age, Mike Crondahl grew up in-and-around Plywood Mills always wanting to help his father Victor when calling on customers, looking at equipment or holding the flashlight for his father.

Fresh from high-school in 1980, Mike spent 4 years working in the property admin. department of a Vancouver based bank, 3 years working as a Property Administrator for the North Fraser Harbour Commission, then 4 years as the sole-owner and president of “International Patent Search Corporation”
where Mike help businesses and individuals to search for prior ‘intellectual property’ within the US,
Canadian and International Patent offices.

In 1990, at 28 yrs. old Mike started working with Vic at Westmill, eventually taking over as President &
sole-owner after Vic’s passing in 1996.

Personal

Mike is an outdoorsman, sportsman, golfer, hunter, fisherman and avid powerboater/sailor. Mike raced sailboats competitively for many years, and now enjoys casual cruising with friends and family. Mike enjoys getting away on his Harley or on his Adventure Touring bikes whenever he can.
Mike and wife Jeanette have 3 beautiful young children…. Mary, Tommy, and Lily.

Professional

Karl brings over 30 years of international leadership and professional engineering experience to support Mike Crondahl and the Westmill leadership team. Beginning his career with a Mechanical Engineering degree from the UK, Karl later pursued business education at SFU in Vancouver, enabling him to blend technical expertise with strategic business management.

Karl’s diverse experience spans automotive, military, construction, and more recently, direct-to-consumer high-value manufactured goods. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated the ability to lead complex operations, optimize processes, and build successful teams in highly competitive markets.

Karl’s hands-on leadership style is grounded in servant leadership principles, empowering teams through trust, collaboration, and continuous learning. His contributions to Westmill focus on advancing strategic initiatives, market expansion, and operational efficiency, ensuring the company’s sustained growth and success.

Personal

Karl is an avid coach and community development leader through the YMCA, volunteering as a fitness instructor since circa 2006. He enjoys the outdoors and takes every opportunity to ride his adventure motorcycle on technically challenging routes.

Professional

George completed his education at the University of British Columbia, earning a degree in Chemical Engineering.  He has over 20 years of Technical Sales and Service experience selling chemicals and machinery to Pulp & Paper, Mining, Plywood, and the Gypsum Board Industries.  George enjoys working in the forestry industry and is passionate about delivering first-class solutions to customers to increase their production and improve their processes.

Personal

George enjoys spending time outdoors with his family skiing, camping, swimming, and coaching his sons’ soccer teams.

Professional

With over three decades of experience in technical sales and marketing, Evan has come to understand that the best path to long-term success in sales is by providing the best customer service possible and by building strong client relationships.

He is thrilled to be part of a company that strives to innovate and improve everyday.

Personal

During his free-time, Evan can most often be found sitting behind his guitar. If not there, you might find him woodworking in his shop or listening to music while cooking for his wife and 3 children. If you haven’t found him in any of those places, he is likely on his sailboat and doesn’t wish to be found.

Professional

Jenny has worked in the forest industry for 20 years. She’s proud to work for a company that plays a part in the production of sustainable and renewable building products. Focused on customer service, she’ll take on other roles as needed in order to deliver customer satisfaction. She values the relationships she has with customers.

Personal

Jenny’s joy is spending time with her family. They love to explore and camp, and also to cruise in their classic cars and trucks. Her personal hobbies are reading and gardening.

Professional

With over a decade of experience in sales and project co-ordination, Stacey takes pride in fulfilling customers’ needs and exceeding expectations.

She enjoys being involved in company committees and operations projects, striving to improve processes and efficiency for an efficient professional environment.

Personal

Stacey comes from a busy household including 2 kids, 3 pets, and an amazing husband of over 16 years.

When not driving her kids to sports or music practices, Stacey enjoys designing and creating homemade projects and long-distance running.

Professional

With several years of marketing under her belt, Shelby brings with her a passion for design and a flair for the creative.

After graduating from the Vancouver College of Art and Design, she began working as a graphic artist in Northern British Columbia.

Once she returned to the mainland, her career took her to new heights (literally). Joining an aviation school, she worked on rebranding the image of the company and successfully launched them into the European aviation market.

Shelby also works as a freelance designer with her company.

Personal

When not working on a current project, Shelby loves anything outdoors. From camping, and kayaking, to off-roading. And, when she’s not getting lost in the woods, Shelby spends plenty of time entertaining her two nieces.

Retired after 27 years with Westmill

Professional

Grace has been with Westmill for more than 25 years and is our longest-serving employee. She is responsible for managing the financial affairs for Westmill’s Canadian and US operations. Her friendly smile and attitude help make Westmill a pleasant place to work. She is a very honest, meticulous, hardworking individual with unwavering dedication. Grace is detail oriented with a very strong work ethic.

Personal

Grace is a world-c lass fencing athlete and has participated in many international competitions with excellent results and medals in the past 15 years.

Professional

With over 12 years of experience in accounting and auditing, Urvi is a Chartered Accountant (CA) from India and a Chartered Public accountant (CPA) in Canada. She is responsible for managing the accounting aspects of Westmill Industries.

Personal

Born and raised in Mumbai, India. Urvi immigrated to Canada in 2016 and spent 7 years in the Maritimes and moved to BC in 2023. She enjoys hiking, painting, and dancing when not busy with her two kids.

Professional

Over 20 years experience working in industrial/agriculture, R&D and engineering/project environments. Have been leading multidisciplinary teams since 2017, turning passion into product.

Personal

Spending time with family is important, a close second is riding bikes and reading.

Professional

A technically oriented Mechanical Designer with over 6 years of experience in product design and development of metallic and composite structures. Completed a master’s degree in Aerospace and holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Certified Solidworks Professional with advanced skills in 3D Modeling and Finite Element Analysis.

Personal

I enjoy socialising with friends and family, loves playing badminton every weekends. Actively engaged in volunteering activities for church/community services

Professional

Brent is a result-driven professional with many years of design and project management experience.  Expertise in designing solutions at many levels for heavy equipment applications.  Collaborative and engaging with a proven track record of pre-emptively addressing and resolving a variety of issues and discrepancies across institutions and projects.

Personal

Brent is registered as a contributor on a patent for the implement design of a forestry skidder vehicle. He enjoys being outdoors with family snowmobiling, hiking, off-road motorcycle adventures and motorcycle touring as featured activities.

Professional

Bachelor in Mechanical Design from BCIT.

Diploma in Web Development from Lighthouse Labs.

Personal

Played in bands since age of 12, including Richard on Richards, the first Pemberton music festival, opened for The Hives at the Commodore Ballroom (Played a promo game of shinny hockey at GM Place with Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Alex Edler, and The Hives that afternoon).

Professional

Noel started his working career as an apprentice Diesel and Electric Fitter. Repairing and maintaining rail locomotives. Moving on to the Mechanical Drawing Office. In his career as a machine designer Noel has designed machines for a sweets and chocolate factory, large wire mesh welding machines and designed large scale vacuum and microwave drying machines for the food industries.

Noel believes that through new innovations Westmill Industries will become the leader in the veneer drying industry.

Personal

Loves to go fishing, do some painting, sitting in the sun with his wife, Susanna, or go fishing.

Professional

I have been involved in mechanical design for over 25 years now, I have had my hands in many large projects from Water park design. Almost all aspects of the lumber industry as well as in mining machinery design.

Personal

Have been called the BBQ king on many occasions, enjoy spending time outdoors with family and friends, Drone photography is new to me, but I truly enjoy it. I am a total gadget person and my daughter teases me all the time.

Professional

Ankitha graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Mechanical Engineering degree, class of 2023. Her professional experience spans five co-ops where she cultivated her skills in mechanical and manufacturing design, maintenance planning and material science in busy, bustling industrial environments.

She is proud to call Westmill her first workplace post-graduation and is excited to tackle complex problems while continuously learning from the plethora of information she is surrounded by at Westmill.

Personal

Ankitha’s myriad interests include anything music-related, reading books, hiking with friends, ice cream, history and art. She also enjoys talking to her parents in India in her spare time.

Professional

Gizem completed her bachelor’s degree in Material Sciences Engineering, complemented by a diploma in Business Administration. With a focus on mechanical and manufacturing design, she has cultivated her skills in the machinery and forest industries.

Over the past three years, Gizem has enjoyed working as a Mechanical Designer and Project Engineer, where she tackles exciting projects and finds creative solutions to challenges to drive innovative projects and enhance operational efficiency.

Personal

Outside of her professional life, Gizem enjoys spending time outdoors, embracing the beauty of nature, exploring new cities, and meeting new people. Her passion for sports is reflected in her background as a former professional volleyball player, demonstrating her commitment to teamwork and discipline. Additionally, Gizem has a deep appreciation for history, archeology, literature, and art, often visiting museums to enrich her understanding and engage with different cultures. Whether she’s reading a book or wandering through an exhibit, she finds inspiration in the stories of the past.

Professional

Karel has been with Westmill for over 20 years. He started out doing a myriad of jobs, including setting up and running the machine and fab shop. Prior to being with Westmill, he built and repaired boats.

Personal

Karel loves the outdoors. His passion is sailing and kayaking; he’s also an avid snowboarder and mountain biker, and he enjoys gardening.