Yves Farges:
CLASS OF 1975
Sentinel Secondary SchoolClass of 1975
West vancouver, BC
Westcott SchoolClass of 1970
Vancouver, BC
Lord Roberts SchoolClass of 1968
Vancouver, BC
Yves's Story
Life
So it is Bio time? Wiser now. Personally, high school was not a picnic for me but I was pretty introverted back then. Some great people, some terrible, but the teachers were first rate. I kept in touch for a while with Philip Tingey who has guided the growth of a number of financial institutions near Chilliwack. I was keeping tabs on Greg Huber's super job (using environmentally-friendly low-ash concrete) rebuilding the reservoir up in Queen Elizabeth Park but haven't seen him in decades. UBC was Nirvana for me. In U.B.C. for seven years, studying Physics and then Engineering Physics. Rowed Jr. Varsity a few years and played a lot of competitive chess. The U.S. Junior Open Chess Championships, the National Chess Open in Los Angeles, the National Open in Las Vegas, the World Open Chess Championships in Philadelphia, the New York Open, plus a slew of other neat events were a lot of fun and allowed me to become an "official" Master of Chess. After university I took a number of interesting work projects, including surveying in the Yukon. Moved to Toronto in 1984 to start my first company Qualifirst Foods Ltd. which was an incredible amount of work, with the classic entrepreneurial 18 hour days, seven days a week, 360 days a year. Qualifirst has gone from local obscurity to national obscurity. Immersed myself in work and enjoy working. Moved back to Vancouver in 1995 and in 1999 purchased Far-Met Importers Ltd., B.C.'s oldest importer of fine foods, which made my group of companies national with the addition of Aliments Qualifirst Ltee in Montreal. Five years later, my team in Toronto launched probably the first B2C fine food internet site in Canada now qualifirst.com. This caused a fair amount of press and the shockingly good Globe and Mail article on Qualifirst in 2004 followed by a surprising full page article in the Toronto Star. Since 2004 there have been fun television appearances on Breakfast Television in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, & Edmonton. Internationally I lecture on distribution and business organization only if invited by governments, which meant even more trips to Europe and South America. I do not believe my own press. No autographs, ha ha.
In 2015 I promoted my team and decided to expand into real estate, building a new warehouse. Limited partner in my first $100 million dollar project. My group of companies expanding, adding an interest in retail stores and a liquor store … lots of fun keeping me challenged during COVID.. Survived COVID.
Hobbies: I took a lot of Judo in my teens and competed, then Karate, a variety of martial arts, and love windsurfing (for me aka as “falling into water 😂) on vacation but it needs work. I lived in a 3 story townhome in Yaletown with a kicking pool & rec centre. Then I bought a ruined estate on Taylor Way in West Vancouver, which I have renovated. Today moved up the hill with a drop-dead view of Vancouver.
Current hobby (since 1998) is playing competitive poker online and in Las Vegas. For a while I was "just a bad player" but a little work and a positive earn rate later, made real progress. Pre-COVID I played in the World Poker Tour. Early in 2007 I beat out 52 top players to win US$16,000, so it is progress. Late 2007 I became a ranked player. In August 2009 I beat out 92 top players to qualify for the $10,000 entry World Poker Tour in Cyprus against the best in the world, finishing at 50%. In September 2011 I qualified for the World Poker Tour again, this time for the $10K WPT Paris Grand Prix, jetting in from my vacation in Martinique. There were 312 great, world-class players there ... and I finished 25th winning 16,600 euros. This made me a ranked player in the world. I qualified again in December, this time the World Poker Tour Prague 2011. Since those successes I have played in eleven more WPT events around the world.
I travel way too much, still have a weird sense of humour, so be warned. In 2019 business travel meant in 28 days I crossed the Atlantic six times. Since high school I have managed to screw up just enough to become a better and more regular person. I guess that means I have learned from my mistakes, ... c'est la vie. I am still six feet, two inches high and weigh 230 lbs. Yes, I could drop 20, but the office life takes its toll! I lift weights to ski better. My investment in Black Hills Winery did well when it was sold for $31 million. Launched Farges Enterprises in 2015 and built the new office and warehouse complex in Burnaby, sold in 2022 for an eye-watering profit. Expanding into coffee buying POUR in Victoria but in 2019 but sold it to MILANO’s.
These days Group ceo of the Qualifirst Group and past Chairman of Rainforest Automation, a tech startup I invested in. Involved in a few building projects and expanding into manufacturing. Online business a bit of a passion and COVID allowed me to start an online business from zero that is doing very well now.
In very good health and these days, ... that is enough!
Hope this fills in my classmates on my life thus far. Don't be shy. Feel free to give me a call, remind me that you are still kicking. My Vancouver office number is (604) 876-2241 ext 213 and for you out-of-towners my toll free is (800) 663-1484. Best of luck and best wishes to everyone for health and happiness.
Yves
School
A High School Profile ... lol ... this is going to be ugly. School was learning and science, some good friends, some great teachers, and a rocky road. Hobbies kept me sane, and my curiosity knew no bounds. The shallow pursuits of many classmates just baffled me totally. Only in University would I learn that this was more me being aloof, than people being cracked. I have to say that a few teachers (Garby in Chemistry) marking me a lot harder than others, driving me, allowed me to set very high standards later in life. A few good friends in High school took the time to understand and it was ok. Looking back it was bizarre that I would ski regularly like a maniac, yet never go on a school ski trip or with school friends. I remembe...Expand for more
r running into (meeting, not colliding) with someone from school at the bottom of a ski run called Coffin on Grouse. "What the hell are 'you' doing on this run?" I remember clearly thinking 'yah, nice to meet you too', but just skiing away. Socially I was very, very backward. Hiking with Greg Huber & the 'hiking posse of friends he had' remains one of the best times and fondest memories I have of the recreational side of HS. Those early camping trips led me to accept a job surveying in the Yukon during university. Thin-skinned, and but generally a nice guy, that pretty well sums me up during high school. I played a lot of chess, and in retrospect, probably too much, but I enjoyed the game a lot, and the competitions were really tough. It satisfied my competitive drive. I competed in Judo at the provincial level but kept it pretty quiet in HS. My best friends knew. I kept my martial arts pretty low key. School sports, like most team sports, did not really appeal which is too bad, that is something I would change. Looking back, I was probably pretty arrogant, and opening up more would have done me a world of good. I was into sciences in a very, very big way, yet when I took the typing class run by the HS business teacher (name forgotten, sorry, I think Bryant) he talked me into doing a basic business course. My typing was pretty bad but I took to the business side pretty fast. Roy Bezanson was the star of that class, but the whole commerce angle would start to take over my life there. Science in HS, also in University, but business and commerce would be my field later in life. There were some unique people in HS. I had a lot of friends and all of them were unique and inspiring in their own way. Vincent Van Gogh was absolutely unique. I could never figure him out but have many positive memories of his ideas, antics, and friendship. Philip Tingey and Greg Huber, the list goes on, and on. That's it for now, but I'll update another time.
College
Freedom at university was the key. New ideas, hard work, new people, ... I went totally, intellectually 'insane'. Doing my Math homework while working through Sedgewick Library's collection of music. It was vinyl records back then folks. I remember walking into the Thesis library in the main stacks for the first time. I swear my pupils dilated. Tens of thousands of books on every subject imaginable. It was not unusual for me to take home two dozen of them a night. I took up rowing after some random jock from some private school mentioned to a friend and me that unless I had rowed a lot, it was pointless trying out for any of the UBC rowing teams. I made jr. varsity and rowed for two seasons and it was a blast. It was also the first serious team sport I had ever really done, and I discovered that people were not all that bad. I was hired as a House Advisor for Sherwood Lette house in Vanier and that was one of the most satisfying times of my life. I had worked as a volunteer on the desk of SPEAKEASY in the SUB, and that experience helped me get the job. I saved a person's life and grew as a person. I remember the computer classes with the stupid towers of paper punchcards, and the languages we learned: Cobol, Snowball, Fortran. During this time I began to realize that although I had spent most of my time learning science and Math, I was made for business. My success trading on the old wild VSE (I used to memorize the yearly Oil and Gas Companies Handbook as a teen) was added to my work savings. I noticed I was reading non-fiction on business for pleasure at an alarming clip. I audited a number of business classes and crashed lectures on a number of business subjects. I had found my vocation.
Workplace
My early work experience was pretty varied. As a teen I washed dishes at the Bayshore Inn (to earn money for my car, the 2nd hand Red Renault 12), cut trees, and the usual broad range of jobs. After university I surveyed in the Yukon for a year, worked as an Accounts Receivable clerk, held a few sales jobs, stock trader (actually I started trading stocks on the VSE when I was 15), and the list goes on. By 1983 I had enough general business and sales experience to have noticed a big difference between the people that built companies and those that managed them. Not a negative difference; just a fundamental difference. I decided that I would strike out on my own and take on the free market directly. I moved to Toronto and started Qualifirst Foods Ltd. in 1984. It was a rocky time, filled with a lot of positives and negatives, but by-and-large, it was a unique journey. My company prospered. One of the little-known side-effects of starting your own business that succeeds is your free time disappears and you literally drop off the map. A small business demands constant attention. Even when a company grows, it needs attention and direction; all the time. I am what you could call a very happy workaholic. Qualifirst Group of companies has grown … a lot. Today I am doing less office work and a LOT of travelling, getting to the root of the products my teams sell in Canada. Additionally, there is a fair amount of media exposure as a "food expert", which is nothing more than a sick accumulation of food facts and knowledge about fine foods that I have built up over 30 years. Luckily, my sense of humour kicks in. Recently I had a mention in the book "ZENTREPREURISM" because my approach to business is (to say the least) unorthodox. Television appearances and lectures on entrepreneur topics fill in spare time, to help young people connect with the real side of business, not what the clone factories in university business schools try to brainwash students with. I have invested in that amazing winery Black Hills and that has been a very fun business expansion. Recently as a Venture Capitalist I am investing in a high-tech startup Rainforest Automation which shows good promise for the long term. Added a new company "The Kitchen Canada" in Toronto to the Qualifirst Group. I hope the truth did not bore the reader ... :)
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