‘The harder you work, the luckier you get’

Doug Doucet shares the inspiring origin story of rcs construction

When Doug Doucet’s mother put him on a plane bound for Toronto, he assured her he’d return home to Nova Scotia as soon as he could.

“I said ‘Mum, don’t worry. I’ll be back someday to start my own company,’” recalls the president and CEO of rcs construction. “I just knew I’d become an entrepreneur.”

After nine long years of projectmanaging the builds of new A&P stores across Ontario, Doug moved back to Nova Scotia in 1994, eager to open his own construction business with a couple of buddies using their expertise in grocery store projects.

“We figured we’d knock on Sobeys’ doors and they’d hire us, since we knew we could put up stores really quickly,” explains Doug.

But that’s not what happened. While the eager young trio secured a meeting with Sobeys, it didn’t go any further.

“They listened for an hour and then they basically said ‘Nice to meet you, but come back and see us when you’ve done something,’” says Doug. “Even though we had a lot of experience building grocery stores, we were just a three-day-old company, in their eyes.”

THE START OF SOMETHING HUGE

Now, this was right around the time when Pete Luckett was planning to launch his largest Pete’s Frootique at Sunnyside Mall. He was in the early stages of working with another construction company, but Doug convinced him to “take a chance” on him.

“Here we were, three young fellas with some grocery store experience, but he thought ‘Doug’s going to work really hard. He’s full of piss and vinegar,’” says Doug, smiling at the memory.

Within a week, Pete had cancelled his original contractor and signed on to work with rcs construction.

Of course, rcs construction was literally brand new, without a crew to complete the work. Doug cleared that hurdle by calling up some of the carpenters and tradespeople he’d worked with back in Ontario, convincing them to move out to the east coast for fresh air — and a fresh start.

Pete knew he wanted his new store to be unlike anything ever done before in Nova Scotia, so he and Doug spent weeks exploring the coolest specialty grocery stores they could find across North America. They’d tour around, take pictures, and then go back to the hotel each night and talk about what they liked.

“Pete would draw his vision on a napkin, and then I’d take that, turn it into a sketch, and fax it back home,” says Doug.

When they returned to Halifax, official drawings were already underway (courtesy of rcs’s draftsperson/ partner, Bruce) — exactly as Pete had envisioned them.

“We were two peas in a pod. He’d say ‘Doug! If I squint my eyes, I see it!’ and I got it. I could put what he saw into a clear picture.”

They began working together to create the vibrant, larger-than-life Bedford store that wowed shoppers from across the province. While Doug enjoyed the work, he knew he needed to be thinking ahead to the next potential project for his team.

THE INFAMOUS SECOND CHANCE

Sobeys turned him away just six months earlier, but he was about to get a second chance with them.

The New Glasgow Sobeys needed to be rebuilt, and it was predicted to be a 12-week job. Frank Berry, a former Loblaws colleague, assured Sobeys that Doug’s team could complete the job in just seven weeks. It was an impressive promise, considering other companies were quoting that it would take 10-12 weeks, but Doug appreciated Frank’s confidence in him.

“I said ‘We don’t need to see anything. We’ve never let Frank down before. If he says we can do it in seven weeks, we can do it in seven weeks,’” says Doug.

rcs construction won the tender to renovate the New Glasgow Sobeys, and since it was the very location where the Sobey family did their grocery shopping, the pressure was on. Doug knew his team could complete the work, but what he didn’t expect was a huge out-of-pocket expense.

“When we were awarded the Sobeys job, we weren’t bonded, so Sobeys required a certified cheque for $200,000 as a form of security,” says Doug. “We went from the highest high — being awarded the project — to the lowest low, because there wasn’t any way we could pay that.”

Humbly, Doug went back to Pete and explained the situation. Would he be willing to pay a little early, so rcs construction could accept the Sobeys job?

Pete grinned, pulled the chequebook out of his pocket, and wrote Doug a cheque for the $200K he needed. rcs construction went on to finish Pete’s Frootique and it was a huge success. (To this day, Pete remains one of Doug’s best friends and mentors.)

rcs construction’s first location in Halifax expanded four separate times until they finally built their own office off Bluewater Road in Bedford. The New Brunswick office in Monton has been running for nearly 20 years now (also running all P.E.I. projects), and the Newfoundland and Labrador office in St. John’s opened 10 years ago.

“We’ve had a lot of good breaks, but the harder you work, the luckier you get,” says Doug. “Nothing comes easy, but it does come easier if you’re willing to work very hard.”