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In the early days of a small business, the owners need to wear many hats.

Cal Wenzel was no exception, pivoting from a builder’s hardhat to a role in marketing and sales when opportunities arose. He and then partner Barry Basillie started Shane Homes in 1979, operating as a two-person team with no staff for the first few years of operation.

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“On Saturdays and Sundays, we’d always work on the front of the house — whether it was a house we were building as a spec or one for a customer — so when people would stop and ask who the builders are and we’d start talking to them,” says Cal Wenzel, who previously held a senior management position in the Jim Pattison Group of Companies.

“That’s how we got our sales.”

Shane Homes, now with a staff of 90, celebrated its 40-year anniversary this month.

“It’s a really good feeling to know you’ve succeeded enough to be in business that long,” says Shane Wenzel, president of Shane Homes Group of Companies, and Cal’s son.