Twenty years ago, while a recession lingered and there was a dearth of good jobs for women, Renee Merrifield set up shop as a developer.
The bold move made her Kelowna's first woman developer and paved the way for the creation of some of the city's most innovative communities.
"I had to make my own job because there weren't a lot of good jobs in Kelowna then," said Merrifield at a party to celebrate Troika's 20th birthday.
"I'd been doing some consulting to developers, but wanted to start my own company that would be sustainable and do things differently."
So, Troika Group was born.
To keep ego out of it, rather than name the business after herself, she called it Troika after the word for a team of horses that works together.
As such, she fosters collaboration and teamwork at every level and with every person in the company.
You may also be familiar with Merrifield's name because, in addition to being founder and co-CEO of Troika, she's also the Liberal MLA for Kelowna-Mission.
And, her brother is Lane Merrifield, who made a name for himself as one of the founders of Club Penguin, the online playground that sold to Disney for $350 million and he's popped up as one of the dragons on the hit, business-pitch TV show Dragons' Den.
Merrifield started her development career with a 19,000-square-foot medical and dental office building on Ambrosi Road and went on to build apartment building Citybrook, Yaletown condos, The Gate townhouses, Green Square eco-townhouses-and-condos and the Upper Avenue office building downtown where Troika's headquarters is.
While doing this, Troika also built as much, or more, housing and commercial space in Edmonton and Winnipeg.
Currently, the company has 13 projects on the go in nine communities.
Despite all the action and options, Merrifield doesn't hesitate when asked what her favourite project is.
"West Harbour is my baby," she said.
"Initially, it was to be a lakeside community with West Kelowna's first highrise condominiums. And then the recession (of 2008-09) happened and we had to reimagine quickly. We went with single-family homes and a village feel and it couldn't have worked out better."
West Harbour is located on Okanagan Lake on the Westside just north of the bridge.
The switch from highrises to single-family homes did not deter Troika from building all the expensive amenities originally planned.
That means West Harbour community-use beach, pool, marina and tennis court.
"The first homes at West Harbour went for $400,000," said Merrifield with a laugh.
"They're now worth three times that much."
West Harbour is currently made up of 265 homes with about 40 more yet to be built.
The impending recession for 2023 again has Troika pivoting.
Rather than build homes and condos for sale in a soft sales market, it's concentrating on developing rental apartments and rental commercial space.
Terreno will be at the base of Dilworth Mountain on Mount Baldy Drive with 600 units, some of them rentals.
As yet unnamed apartment buildings on Asher Road and Dougall Road in Rutland and Gordon Drive are also in the works, along with rental projects in Winnipeg, Prince George and Regina.
In the summer, Brad Klassen, who had been Troika's business manager and chief financial office since 2005, became co-CEO to handle more of the day-to-day operations while Merrifield tends to her MLA duties.
"MLA keeps me busy," said Merrifield in understatement with a laugh.
"So my job as co-CEO is more to do with strategy, branding, culture and vision."
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