The one who saved the soupter of Gatineau’s friendship, the largest popular soup in the city, with a stunning donation of generosity in 2013, died on July 23.
Huguette Koller leaves indelible traces behind her in the national capital region, on both sides of the river, and an extraordinary heritage of persistence and self -gift.
His family and relatives said goodbye to him during a private ceremony.
A determined woman
Entrepreneurship flowed in the blood of the Valdorienne. His father, Ernest Leblanc, created the very first hotel in the city of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, to welcome miners from Europe worked in the region’s gold mines.
At six, his family is forced to sell the hotel and moved to Gatineau, to live on a farm inherited from his grandfather who has neither electricity nor light.
She develops a love of the automobile during her youth with her father, who taught her to drive at the age of 14.
When she meets Otto Koller a few years later, it is love at first sight. The Swiss immigrant, passionate about mechanics, arrived in the Canadian capital in 1959, with 500 Swiss francs in his pocket and very summary knowledge of English and French. He has since worked as a mechanic specializing in European cars.
But now neither has enough income to start a family. Huguette works in a pharmacy where she earns 25 cents per hour.
To remedy this, the couple decides to try their luck in business; But nothing is played in advance. At the time, banks were reluctant to lend money to immigrants. Under their perseverance, the bank agrees to grant them the loan, provided they arise every week to make payments.
This allows the couple to open a White Rose petrol station, at the corner of Carling avenue and rue Churchill.
“My mother Huguette was Ottawa’s first wife to work as a pompist. […] She wore a beautiful classic little dress and high heels. Let’s say she became very popular very quickly! ”
— Sonia Koller, daughter of Huguette and Otto and director of the Otto’s BMW and Otto’s Subaru dealerships
Otto quickly notices the absence of BMW brand cars in the streets of the federal capital. Each week, he telephone at the headquarters of the automaker in Germany to ask him to export cars to Canada.
After six months, he convinced BMW to entrust him ten cars. In the spring of 1969, Otto opened its first trade on Richmond path, in the Westboro district.
Huguette then devoted herself entirely to the education of their two daughters, Sonia and Tanya.
Return to dazzling business
In 1978, her daughters being quite old, Huguette Koller decided to regain work. After a three -year apprenticeship with Otto, to find out all the facets of the departments of sales, service and spare parts, she took over the management of a Lada dealer, a fairly popular Russian car brand in Gatineau.
Huguette Koller has a goal: she wants to be able to offer herself a Ferrari Testarossa, the car of her dreams.
With her three sellers, and five technicians, she successfully directs trade until 1983, when a representative of Chrysler Canada offered her the management of a dealer of the brand, on Boulevard Maloney.
“It was the first Chrysler dealer in Canada led by a woman.”
— Sonia Koller
Even in full recession, the businesswoman is determined to ensure the success of her business, and she follows in parallel with her work, management courses from Harvard University.
Despite a bad situation, the turnover of each department of his company tripled in 1989.
That year, Huguette was finally able to survey the capital’s roads behind the wheel of the car of her dreams.
New era
After the death of Otto in 1998, the family saw difficult times.
But with the support of her two daughters, Huguette brilliantly takes over the family business, focusing only on BMW and Subaru cars for which the company is renowned in the region.
“A mother-daughter team was not at all the norm at the time. Few people believed in us. ”
— Sonia Koller
But the success of Koller women quickly speaks of himself.
“It is a remarkably managed family business,” said Subaru Canada president Katsuhiro Yokoyama in 2007. “I discovered one of the secrets of Otto’s’s success. All the employees of the concessionaire are happy to work here. ”
And the BMW Otto’s dealer quickly became the oldest of the brand in Canada, and the largest in this market.
Decades of philanthropy
Once the stability of the company is insured, Huguette decides to devote herself to restoring the community and the poorest.
In 2009, the family created the Planet Otto program: when a customer acquires a car from Otto’s Subaru or BMW, he is called upon to choose the charity organization in which he wishes Otto to pay the donation in his name.
Among these: the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Doctors Without Borders, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (Madd), Scouts Canada, The Ottawa Wild Bird Care Center, the Ottawa Food Bank, the Ottawa mission, the Bruyère Foundation, Moisson Outaouais, The Leading Note Foundation, Orkidstra, for people.
In nine years, Planet Otto pays a million dollars to its organizations.
In 2013, a donation by Huguette Koller upsets the community of Gatineau. It is in its entirety the debt of the soupter of friendship, then on the verge of bankruptcy, and bought the two buildings from which the organism operates.
Without this donation, the food bank would have been forced to close its doors. And the former president of the board of directors from 1986 to 2011 asked for nothing in return; Just that the organization continues its mission as best as possible.
A fervent champion of social services and food banks, Huguette Koller, who had been trained as an opera singer, also wishes to support the artists, musicians and creators of the region and the country.
She also carried out several missions abroad, to support doctors working in isolated communities in Tanzania, or support pilots of hot air balloon and scientists on the island of Baffin.
On his behalf today, his family and his relatives invite all those who would like to honor his memory to make a donation to four charities of the region: the friend friend and harvest Outaouais in Gatineau, as well as the food bank and the mission of Ottawa.