The 23-year-old publisher and founder of 99 North Magazine has been named Business Person of the Year 2000 by Squamish Chamber of Commerce.
Natalie Wall set up 99 North , a magazine for visitors about services and activities in the Sea to Sky corridor, shortly after she graduated from Capilano College in Squamish.
"While growing up, I worked at my parents’ gas station in Whistler," explains Wall. "Over the years, I constantly wondered why someone hadn’t produced a publication that answered all the questions that visitors kept asking me. When I took marketing and advertising in my last term at college, it all came together. That’s were the idea for 99 North came from."
The magazine is now published twice a year and is distributed in 1,000 locations in British Columbia, Alberta and Washington and in Canadian Embassies throughout the world.
It was recently voted B.C.’s most popular visitor’s magazine by Interwest Brochure Marketing, the region’s largest brochure distributing company.
Wall says that being compared to previous recipients of the Business Person of the Year award is a little awe-inspiring.
"They all speak volumes about business people in this community and what they bring," she says. "I haven’t been able to touch that community surface, but I’m honoured to have my name and my staff recognized alongside those people."
