Gabriel Lefebvre: Feeding the world and staying safe

Gabriel Lefebvre has been an occupational health and safety manager for two and a half years, and he firmly believes in Sollio Agriculture’s purpose.

“Something really speaks to me about our mission to feed Canadians and ensure prosperity for farmers, while prioritizing the health and safety of the people who make it happen.”

Gabriel began his career at Sollio Cooperative Group eight years ago, as a safety practitioner at Olymel.

“I joined the Agri-business Division in 2018 as an occupational health and safety advisor. Then, I was promoted to team leader during the pandemic as part of a restructuring. I had always wanted to manage my own team. With the support of Sollio Agriculture, I just started my MBA to level up my management techniques and develop my leadership skills. I want to get a 360-degree view of all possible issues, because it affects the cooperative directly in some ways.”

OHS is never up for debate!

Gabriel and his team are working to change the corporate vision to establish and improve action plans and master plans so that employees can rest assured that they will be well supported and advised with effective, responsible safety measures. Sollio Agriculture has acquired several companies in recent years, and Gabriel is in charge of standardizing their measures and procedures using the good practices already in place.

“The idea is to be an agent of change in the way things are done, the tasks that are requested, the company’s values and the operational side of things, and to always do so safely. Having safe operations is a fundamental right. I can see that Sollio Agriculture has a vision of change and a willingness to take best practices to the next level. The new operational structure will help us deploy all of that.”

Work-life balance is not just for moms!

As a father of two young children, Gabriel understands and appreciates the benefits of a good work-life balance.

“Even before the pandemic we were a mobile team, working on sites all over Canada. Since we had no official office, telework was already the norm. With my two young kids, that was an intangible advantage of working at Sollio Agriculture, because I had the freedom to decide what to do and when to do it.”