Entrepreneur finds success in Halifax

Recently at the Halifax’s Vital Signs event David Fleming, Jr. Economist and Project Development Coordinator at the Greater Halifax Partnership was quoted in a news article saying, “[youth are] our long-term supply of population, our long-term supply of employment opportunities, [and] our long-term supply of entrepreneurship.”

Ron Lovett, President and founder of Source Security featured in last week’s episode of SmartCity, is proof that is true. In an interview with The Chronicle Herald’s John DeMont last winter, the young entrepreneur said he was always the type to be “business-oriented.” He explained how he was “the kind of kid who had three paper routes and cut all the kids in the neighbourhood’s hair.”

Ron started Source Security in 2002 after identifying an opportunity. No one was offering night club security in Halifax at the time so his company started with two employees working at a local bar on Spring Garden Road. “People assume that if something has not been done, that it can’t be done,” he said. But Ron and Source Security disprove that line of thinking.

His business soon expanded to cover 22 bars in downtown Halifax, and today his reach is even further. Source Security now offers several security services for events and individuals as well as private investigating. Source Security has worked at some of the biggest festivals in the world, and for some of the biggest names in the world.

Today, Ron is a driven entrepreneur who continues to operate Source Security out of its Head Office in Halifax. Ron tells SmartCity host Craig Layton that he doesn’t feel any pressure to move Source Security’s home base.

“I feel very proud to be an Atlantic Canadian owned and operated company. I don’t ever see us moving our head office from Atlantic Canada.”

And with all Halifax has to offer,  why would Source Security want to call anywhere else home? 

Halifax is already home to the head and regional offices(HROs) of several major Canadian corporations, and the Partnership’s new Head and Regional Office (HRO) Program is aimed at attracting even more HROs to set up shop here. Multi-unit operations amount to less than one percent of business in Canada, but generate more than half of the business income and employ one third of the work force. They also help create high paying jobs for residents while helping grow the economy.

Ron started his business as a driven twenty-something-year-old right here in Halifax. Now with big name clients and 3,500 employees, I think it’s safe to say that big things start – and grow – here. 

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Author: Samantha Lodge

Samantha is the Communications and Marketing Assistant at the Greater Halifax Partnership. She moved from Newfoundland to Halifax to attend university, and ended up rekindling her love of the east coast. She feels that being close to the ocean in a city with so much excitement is the ideal situation – Halifax’s talented music scene is an added bonus!