Biography
After 33 years working in the public education system, Harv Giesbrecht retired that career path and started in business development at Icon Technologies Limited.
“I went from offering career options to 16-year-olds to making waste tanks for manufacturers,” Giesbrecht said. Through the transition, he continued helping people get jobs and created a new Icon division in the process.
Icon grew from 26 employees when Giesbrecht started in 2016 to 56 at the start of 2020 and almost 100 in 2021. Within six weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, Icon announced a 45,000-square-foot building expansion.
“I love working with that kind of courage in the midst of a pandemic,” Giesbrecht said. Though he partially credits Icon Founder John Loewen for the staff increase, Giesbrecht said his boss told him when he started, “‘You spent all those years in education helping kids find a job. How would you like to see what it takes to create a job for someone else?’”
Graduating from Canada’s University of Manitoba with a bachelor’s degree and certificate in education, Giesbrecht spent 15 years as a middle and high school teacher. In addition to teaching geography in Manitoba’s Garden Valley school district, he was coach and Student Council Advisor. In 1995, Giesbrecht shifted to providing career education and work placement for the district’s high school seniors. He left three years later to work as a transport driver before becoming Director at Red River Technical Vocational Area. In 2016, Loewen reached out.
“Our kids played sports together,” Giesbrecht said. “John thought I looked bored after I ‘retired.’” After developing manufacturing programs for high schoolers, Giesbrecht knew and understood the industry’s technology and vocabulary. With the creation of Giesbrecht’s business development role, Icon shifted from using thermoforming to rotational molding. Though Icon previously focused efforts on the RV aftermarket, the company began working with OEMs in Elkhart, Indiana.
