Everything Wayne Gamester needed to know about success he learned from his parents on their PEI potato farm. They instilled a strong work ethic in their nine children who grew up helping others in their community.

“We didn’t have money growing up, but we had better than that. Our parents instilled good values in us. They told us if you treat people the way you want to be treated, you’ll go places,” says Wayne Gamester, founder of Alberta Fire & Flood. “We grew up learning how to work.”

Armed with little more than those life lessons and the $1,000 he’d saved working for the county, Wayne and a friend headed west in 1981. His friend’s mother contacted a school friend named Lou MacEachern who agreed to hire the boys at his restoration company in Calgary. The day they arrived in Alberta, they started working.

Lou and his partner, Eldon Hardy, mentored Wayne, teaching him every aspect of the restoration business over the next two decades. Wayne was eager to build something of his own so in 2003 he started Alberta Fire & Flood (AFF) in his garage.

“I took a little leap, contacting some people I knew in the industry to see if they’d give me some work and they promised they would. They did! Our customers have been faithful ever since,” he says.

Wayne applied his east coast work ethic to the task of building a company from the ground up. The staff of three worked out of their 600-square-foot garage, and with the support of his wife, Pam, he established himself in the industry. Before long they outgrew the garage and rented their first warehouse and then a larger one, and finally moved into their current 34,000-square-foot office and warehouse on Farrell Road SE in June 2015. With every move, AFF added more staff to accommodate the increased workload and today the company boasts a dedicated team of 36 employees ready to serve their residential and commercial customer base.

For 20 years, Alberta Fire & Flood has been the first call when emergencies happen, and spaces and contents need to be restored after water, fire or smoke damage. The team is also proficient in treating asbestos and mould, sewage back-ups and storm damage, and is certified to deal with biohazards and forensic clean up at crime scenes and unattended deaths. AFF has a small carpentry shop onsite and minor rebuilds have become a major part of the business.

AFF has a wealth of experience from trained and certified staff that it can draw on and it has become a preferred vendor for insurance companies helping their clients navigate the restoration process after emergencies. Alberta Fire & Flood is now extending its scope to include offering emergency restoration and treatment of building envelop failures to commercial clients in property management and larger tenant condominium management companies.

While the company is focused on Calgary and the surrounding areas, when major events occur across the province, it’s all hands on deck. Alberta Fire & Flood is proud to mobilize a team and do all they can to help.

“Every disaster that has hit, from the Slave Lake fires in 2011 to the flooding here and in High River in 2013, the fires in Fort McMurray in 2016 and the floods in Fort Vermilion and Fort McMurray in 2020, we’ve gone to them all,” Wayne says.
After the wildfires in Fort McMurray, AFF assembled a team of 200 made up of staff and temporary employees, liaised with an oil company to have them create a camp for the restoration team using prefab modular buildings, and then they got to work. They spent about five months in the area treating smoke, soot and fire damage to allow people to move back into their homes.

“We had to split our staff because you still have to run things here in Calgary and look after your clients that look after you here every day,” Wayne says.

The staff does whatever it takes to look after clients on every job. Wayne and Pam Gamester appreciate and value their hard work and look after their employees in return, from providing an onsite gym for staff to offering attractive wages with the option of commission packages for those with more drive. The Gamesters strive to promote from within and many of their project managers started out as frontline staff. This has helped them retain the high experience levels in the company and protect the positive culture they have built over two decades.

While they are working in terrible, challenging circumstances, the team still has fun together on and off the clock. They have regular potlucks and social events, and the senior leadership team checks in at job sites to make sure everyone has what they need or to bring meals to support them and give them one less thing to worry about.

“They are more like family than employees. They are loyal and hardworking people, and we really are a tight knit group,” says Pam Gamester.

Family is what drives the team., The Gamesters’ daughters, Chelsa and Emily, “helped with inventory” as kids and now their husbands work at the company. Restoration is also the Templemans’ family business and Rick’s daughter, Brooke, joined AFF to help her dad grow the company. The owners take care of the community as well as they do their work family. They support Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade (WICC) with an annual Stampede fundraiser that last year netted $21,000 for the cause. They also donate to the Alberta Children’s Hospital and host food and clothing drives for veterans while also supporting their industry through scholarships for insurance programs.
Community, family and integrity are the pillars of AFF, and the Gamesters brought on three like-minded partners over the years in Fletcher Armstrong, David Smith and Gary Wellon to help them build the business. Fletcher and David retired, and the tragic passing of Gary left a void that is being filled by Rick Templeman since bringing his 44 years of experience in the industry to the team in July 2022. Rick is poised to take over the company in the next five years so the Gamesters can retire.

“I’m looking forward to building the business and bringing my family into it – the whole family is in restoration,” says Rick Templeman, general manager of Alberta Fire & Flood. “I’m excited for the opportunity.”

The Gamesters know he will grow and better the company they poured their hearts into for the past 20 years, and they are sure that Alberta Fire & Flood couldn’t be in better hands.

7029 Farrell Road S.E.
Calgary, Alberta T2H 0T3
1.403.204.2259 | abff.ca