Garmin attracts B.C. engineers to its Canadian office in Alberta

In 1998, four engineers in Cochrane, Alberta — a large town of 32,000, nestled midway between Calgary and the Rockies — put their heads together to revolutionize the sport and fitness industry. It was a big dream. Global players like Nike were on a meteoric rise, tech like heart rate monitors had been in operation since the 1980s, and the explosion of the health and fitness industry that began in the 1970s continued to mature.

The four focused on their own niche in the market: a small, accelerometer-based, shoe-mounted sensor that accurately measured speed and distance. In order to view this information in real time, the founders invented an ultra-low-power wireless protocol that became known as ANT+, a standard of interoperability embraced by the sport and fitness industry for decades. They named the company Dynastream Innovations.

Eight years later, the startup caught the attention of Garmin: a company founded in the U.S. in 1989, which first focused on GPS navigation products for aviation. After conquering the skies, as well as the marine and automotive industries, Garmin closed in on the fitness market, and Dynastream seemed like a natural fit. In 2006, the Cochrane company was acquired by the U.S. darling, expanding Garmin’s research and development activities on fitness, outdoor, and wireless products. After nearly 12 years of operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Garmin, Dynastream Innovations became Garmin Canada in July 2018, and the Cochrane location became the global company’s official Canadian headquarters.

Through a steady stream of  investment from Garmin, the Cochrane team has grown to nearly 250 employees. Just over 200 of those team members are full-time, in highly skilled STEM positions — and more than a few of them have chosen to move to the office from British Columbia. 

Senior mechanical engineer Garett Favero is one of the Cochrane employees who left the western province for the Albertan town. After completing his undergraduate degree at UBC, he looked east for places he could expand his career.

“I’m a pretty outdoorsy person, and have been mountain biking and backpacking and using Garmin products for a long time, but I didn't really know much about Garmin being in Cochrane before I applied here,” he tells Vancouver Tech Journal. “I wanted to stay in consumer product design, and opportunities in that space in Canada in general are limited. When I read the job posting, it pretty much read like my resume. I thought, ‘Oh, I already have these skills, and this is a cool company,’ and I felt really lucky to have that opportunity present itself to me.

“That was almost five years ago, and it's been awesome ever since to work here, because it's everything as advertised,” he continues. “The lifestyle is really good, the products are super interesting and cool, and it's the kind of work I have always wanted to do. It's not often that you get those kinds of opportunities.”

Favero is not alone in making that decision. B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad ran on a platform last election cycle that stated that one in three people are thinking about leaving the province, and that the number increases to one in two for youths. Many of those are looking at Alberta, which boasts a lower cost of living, more favourable taxes, and higher-than-average salaries. Organizations are taking note. In November, Invest Alberta set up a new remote office in Vancouver with the message that the province is “open and ready for business.” The following month, the Business Council of British Columbia launched an awareness campaign to counter the province's rising outward migration to Alberta, called “Stay with B.C.” 

Favero, for one, is happy to have found his fit at Garmin in Cochrane. Primarily working on fitness sensor products — his team recently finished a chest-based heart rate monitor, the HRM 200, that measures ECGs and delivers real-time heart rate and HRV data — Favero says he feels lucky to work on product design from Alberta, when most of that work takes place in California. Another draw for him is the active lifestyle and culture promoted by Garmin. Citing after-work pond hockey with his colleagues and the ability to run without contending with the rain, he’s an advocate for the Cochrane way of living.

“I think everyone that works here is excited and feels lucky to be here, and working in that environment means that it reduces conflict and it promotes everyone having a positive attitude all the time, and makes it feel less like work,” he says of Garmin’s outdoorsy culture. “It minimizes the kind of situations I hear about from my friends that work in other industries, where it seems like they're on a team of people that all would rather be somewhere else. That makes work painful for everyone. Whereas here, everybody wants to be here.

“I always look at it from a job-first way,” he continues. “You spend so much of your time at work, and especially with the people you work with, that I think it's hard to be picky about other things in your life if that part isn't fulfilling to you. If you can find a work environment that you like, you'll be able to find recreational opportunities in the place that you live.”

Since Garmin’s initial acquisition of Dynastream in 2006, the town has put itself on the map for high-tech businesses. Favouring that quality of life, other entrepreneurs have joined the founders’ lead and started innovative companies that, collectively, have transformed Cochrane into an unlikely tech hotbed in a historically resource-dominated region.

“It seems like Garmin has a habit of finding those [innovative companies] and enabling them to grow,” Favero says of his company’s history. “It was a small team of whatever it was — like, 25 people. A lot of those same people still work here, and it's been 20 years. They're still creating stuff, just in a way bigger sense than they were before. It's cool to have that kind of vote of confidence from a big company, that the people in a small town in Canada are subject matter experts in — and who are now competing with tech giants globally.”

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